Is it ‘hopes’ or is it ‘hoped’? A big question for Bruce Springsteen fans

JAY LUSTIG

Bruce Springsteen in Freehold, on March 7, 2022.

Congratulations to Rolling Stone for getting Bruce Springsteen’s big quote today right. “We hoped to be out there this year,” the magazine quoted The Boss as saying to Jim Rotolo of SiriusXM satellite’s E Street Radio channel, today, in regard to touring. But the only other article about it that I’ve seen, on the Asbury Park Press website, quoted it as “We hope to be out there this year.” Which is a very different thing.

It is, admittedly, hard to tell whether it’s “hope” or “hoped” just by listening to the word. (The fact that “hoped” ends with a “d” and the next word, “to,” begins with a “t” makes it particularly hard.) But when you listen to the whole sentence, only “hoped” makes sense. “We hoped to be out there this year, but I just didn’t have confidence or want to take the risk for my audience that it was going to be okay, you know, so we put it off a little while, but we’re working on plans to get it all together now,” Springsteen said, referring to the risk posed by the pandemic omicron spike this year.

Springsteen did say he wants to start touring again “pretty soon.” But “pretty soon” could mean early- to mid-2023, which is pretty much what I was expecting anyway.

Is some touring later this year still possible? Of course. But it was possible before Springsteen said what he said as well.

I don’t blame people for trying to find something positive in what Springsteen said. But I don’t think it adds anything to what we knew already. He wants to get on the road again. But he’s not ready to say when that’s going to happen.

This is the second day in a row Springsteen has made some news. Yesterday, he appeared at a press conference in his original hometown, Freehold, to announce that an exhibition space devoted to his life and work will open there in 2024.