The Light and Shadows of Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen is a popular but enigmatic musician who was born on September 23, 1949. Not only was he born in the middle of the baby boom, he was also born on Fall Equinox, one of two days each year with equal hours of light and darkness. At Fall Equinox, the hours of daylight decrease until Winter Solstice in late December. This parallel's Springsteen's music. Some of it is light, toe-tapping party rock, and some is quiet, somber, and introspective.

Springsteen's birth chart features a powerful cluster in Libra including Neptune, retrograde Mercury, the South Node, and a New Moon. In fact, he was born fourteen days before a total lunar eclipse in Aries! Once again, there's this contrast of light and shadows. Springsteen's lyrics focus on the lives of ordinary working people, soldiers, and relationship problems. These are topics signified by Saturn and the sixth house. Springsteen's natal Saturn is in his fourth house in Virgo (a sign that rules labor), and is in mutual reception to his retrograde Mercury in Libra, the sign that rules relationships.

The great cluster in Libra squares his natal Jupiter in Capricorn, Saturn's sign. This gives Springsteen a powerful urge to communicate the unvarnished truth as he sees it. With his natal Mars and Pluto in Leo, he has a great compulsion to speak and be heard. Music was the key, because he didn't respond as a child to traditional teaching methods. His retrograde Mercury emphasizes a non-traditional need for hands-on, experiential learning. He plays a number of instruments, a skill that reflects the variety of thoughts inside his head that demand expression.

Springsteen's natal Venus is in Scorpio in the sixth house. He makes insightful musical commentaries (Venus) from the substance of ordinary working lives (sixth) and the emotional hardships that bring growth and transformation (Scorpio). Venus sextiles Saturn, which helps him apply musical form (Saturn) to lyrics and music (Venus). His natal Mars in Leo squares his Venus, so he is acutely aware of sources of conflict between lovers, and the need to put effort into sustaining valuable relationships.

His Venus-Mars square is always restless. Springsteen can't remain in the same head-space he's already explored in depth. Through his long career, Springsteen has changed his musical styles and performing formats again and again. It isn't easy to be a hard-core, long-term Springsteen fan! They must accept each new phase he enters and watch as he examines it from every angle. Springsteen also has a definite social and political edge. This is a performer who doesn't mourn the loss of superficial fans, or those who expect him to recycle the thoughts and sounds from the early albums he produced in the late 1970s.

Springsteen's natal chart makes several connections to the chart for the United States, and these aren't easy contacts. Springsteen's Ascendant is at 22 Gemini, closely conjunct the United States Mars in Gemini. This draws him toward the themes of American soldiers and the consequences of war. Like Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, he uses music as a medium of social commentary about the flawed myth of the American Dream. This wasn't what people expected from the guy who sang “Baby, we were born to run.” The best thing to expect from Bruce Springsteen is that he will keep changing as he explores the light and shadows of the American experience. The universal quality of his work is lodged in his personal struggle to explain the nature of the struggles common to everyone.