Bruce Springsteen’s speech for Roy Orbison’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction in 1987!

Bruce Springsteen‘s speech for Roy Orbison‘s Rock & Roll Hall of FameInduction in 1987!

“In 1970, I rode for fifteen hours in the back of a U-haul truck to open for Roy Orbison at the Nashville Music Fair. It was a summer night and I was 20 years old, and Orbison came out in dark glasses, a dark suit and he played some dark music. In 1974, just prior to going into the studio to record my album Born To Run, I was looking at Duane Eddy for his guitar sound and I was listening to a collection of Phil Spector’s records and Orbison’s All-Time Greatest Hits. I’d lay in bed at night with just the lights of my stereo on and I’d hear ‘Crying’, ‘Love Hurts’, ‘Running Scared’, ‘Only The Lonely’, and and ‘It’s Over’ filling my room. Orbison’s voice was unearthly. He had the ability, like all great Rock and Rollers, to sound like he dropped in from another planet and yet get the stuff that was right to the heart of what you were livin’ in today, and it was how he opened up your vision. I carry his records with me when I go on tour today, and I’ll always remember what he means to me and what he meant to me when I was young and afraid to love. In 1975, when I went into the studio to record, Born To Run, I wanted to make a record with words like Bob Dylan, that sounded like Phil Spector’s productions, but most of all I wanted to sing like Roy Orbison. Now, everybody knows that nobody sings like Roy Orbison.”