of queens and candy aisles
presented at Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium September 25 - 27 Monmouth University Long Branch nj
Desire, Decaying Society, and the Literary Tradition 
of “Queen of the Supermarket”
bill wolff assistant professor of writing arts
rowan university glassboro nj
"The worst song Bruce Springsteen has ever written."
philadelphia inquirer
Detroit News
"At the 3:00 mark, it accidentally turns into a Meatloaf song."
Blender
". . . might be the worst song Springsteen has ever released."
?
What is Bruce doing singing about supermarkets?
What has taken him so long?
A Supermarket in California : Allen Ginsberg

     What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
     In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
     What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

     I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
     I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?
     I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
     We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

     Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?
     (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
     Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

     Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
     Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Outlaw Pete
My Lucky Day
Working On A Dream
Queen Of The Supermarket
What Love Can Do
This Life 
Good Eye 
Tomorrow Never Knows 
Life Itself
Kingdom Of Days
Surprise, Surprise
The Last Carnival 
Devil's arcade

Remember the morning we dug up your gun
The worms in the barrel, the hangin' sun
Those first nervous evenings perfume and gin
The lost smell on your breath as I helped you get it inThe rush of your lips, the feel of your name
The beat of your heart, the devil's arcade

You said heroes are needed, so heroes get made
Somebody made a bet, somebody paid
The cool desert morning, then nothin' to save
Just metal and plastic where your body caved
The slow games of poker with Lieutenant Ray
In the ward with the blue walls, a sea with no name
Where you lie adrift with the heroes
Of the devil's arcade

You sleep and dream of your buddies Charlie and Jim
And wake with the thick desert dust on your skin

A voice says "Don't worry, I'm here"
Just whisper the word 'tomorrow' in my ear
A house on a quiet street, a home for the brave
The glorious kingdom of the sun on your face
Rising from a long night as dark as the grave
On a thin chain of next moments
And something like faith
On a morning to order, a breakfast to make
A bed draped in sunshine, a body that waitsF
or the touch of your fingersThe end of a day
The beat of your heart, the beat of your heart
The beat of your heart, the beat of her heart
The beat of your heart, the beat of her heart
The beat of her heart, the slow burning away
Of the bitter fires of the devil's arcade
There's a wonderful world where all you desire
And everything you've longed for is at your fingertips
Where the bittersweet taste of life is at your lips
Where aisles and aisles of dreams await you
And the cool promise of ecstasy fills the air
At the end of each working day she's waiting there

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
As the evening sky turns blue
A dream awaits in aisle number two

With my shopping cart I move through the heart
Of a sea of fools so blissfully unaware
That they're in the presence of something wonderful and rare
The way she moves behind the counter
Beneath her white apron her secrets remain hers
As she bags the groceries, her eyes so bored
And sure she is unobserved

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
There's nothing I can say
Each night I take my groceries and I drift away,
and I drift away

With guidance from the gods above
At night I pray for the strength to tell the one I love
I love, I love, I love her so
I take my place in the checkout line
For one moment her eyes meet mine
And I'm lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted up, lifted away

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
Though a company cap covers her hair
Nothing can hide the beauty waiting there
The beauty waiting there

As I lift my groceries into my cart
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart

I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
I'm in love with the queen of the supermarket
Moscow on the hudson (1984)
My Blue Heaven (1990)
John Updike
"A & P" (1961)
I realized the place was awash in noise. The toneless systems, the jangle and skid of carts, the loudspeaker and coffee-making machines, the cries of children. And, over it all, or under it all, a dull and unlocatable roar, as of some form of swarming life just outside the range of human apprehension. 


Some people are too small to reach the upper shelves; some people block the aisles with their carts; some are clumsy and slow to react; some are forgetful, some confused; some move about muttering with the wary look of people in institutional corridors. 


They’re round, cubical, pock-marked, seamed. Broken peanuts. A lot of dust at the bottom of the jar. But they taste good. Most of all I like the packages themselves
Jamaica Avenue, Queens  1930
$547.1 billion
$893.08 billion
$333,535
46, 852
2.0
$27.61
$145.51
3.4 million
A mere 31 percent of you arrive at the supermarket with a list. But it doesn't matter: only one-third of your purchases are planned. . . . 

If background music is slowed from a lively allegro of 108 beats per minute to a simple adagio of, say, 60 beats, then the speed of the average buggy slows, more shots are taken and purchases soar. Sales have been measured to increase by 38.2 percent. . . . 

The average “eye height” of a woman is 59 inches; a man’s is 64 inches. And because the best viewing angle is 15 degrees below the horizontal . . . , the choicest elevation on any aisle has been measured at 51 to 53 inches off the floor. 

On average, when you examine a shelf, you like to stand four feet away.
In Line at the Supermarket : Greg Pape

Here you have time to think.
Between the breath mints
and the glamour magazines
you can feel yourself growing old
Next Day : Randall Jarrell

Yet somehow, as I buy All from these shelves
And the boy takes it to my station wagon,
What I’ve become
Troubles me even if I shut my eyes. 

When I was young and miserable and pretty
And poor, I’d wish
What all girls wish:
to have a husband,
A house and children. Now that I’m old, 
my wish Is womanish: 
That the boy putting groceries in my car See me. 

It bewilders me he doesn’t see me. 
For so many years 
I was good enough to eat: the world looked at me
And its mouth watered. How often they have undressed me, 
The eyes of strangers! 
from The Promised Land

Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted
thank you.