He found it with Patti Scialfa, a Jersey girl who'd been a backup singer in the band since '84. There may have been some overlap in the marriage and the love with Patti, and that's a sore point for those who think Bruce has to be perfect. But Bruce, more than anyone, has always sung about taking risks for love. In his 1992 double release, "Human Touch" and "Lucky Town," put out after he'd had a son with (1990) and married (1991) Patti, we hear him dealing with the harshness of life and love but making that leap of faith that it will all work out.

These albums are often overlooked or demoted to also-rans, but they contain two of his tenderest love songs -- "If I Should Fall Behind" ("I'll wait for you/And should I fall behind/Wait for me") from "Lucky Town," and the lullaby "Pony Boy," the last cut on "Human Touch," written for his child. Bruce has come through his need to jump on some wheels and peel out. He's staying home now and singing to his wife and kids -- knowing all the while that this, like everything else, will not be easy.

As he raised a family (he has three children), won three Grammys and an Oscar ("Streets of Philadelphia") and released a career-summarizing "Greatest Hits" album (1995), he also worked on the sparest of all of his albums, "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (1995). Filled with compassionate laments to Depression-era and immigrant pain, this album -- together with the wrenching song from the AIDS-themed "Philadelphia" -- was a public offering of the love and compassion Bruce was nurturing at home. With another Grammy in 1997 for "Tom Joad" for best folk album, Bruce had come full circle. He was rich, with a family and homes on both sides of the country.

But -- and this goes back to why he's a spiritual presence for his fans -- he's the same guy he was more than 20 years ago. The two albums end on a similar note: the beautiful tragedy of being human. "The Ghost of Tom Joad" ends with "My Best Was Never Good Enough":

If God gives you nothin' but lemons then you make some lemonade
The early bird catches the fuckin' worm
Rome wasn't built in a day
Now life's like a box of chocolates
You never know what you're going to get
Stupid is as stupid does and all the rest of that
shit
Come on pretty baby call my bluff
'Cause for you my best was never good enough.

The words are blunter now. He uses the f-word for the first time. Back in '73 his imagery was lusher:

I had skin like leather and the
diamond-hard look of a cobra
I was born blue and weathered
but I burst just like a supernova
I could walk like Brando right
into the sun
Then dance just like a Casanova
With my blackjack and jacket
and hair slicked sweet
silver star studs on my duds
just like a Harley in heat ...
Them gasoline boys downtown
sure talk gritty
It's so hard to be a saint in
the city.

But the sentiment is similar: Life beats you down, but you gotta be tougher than the rest. A middle-aged die-hard Bruce fan from Jersey sums up his hero's enduring attraction. "He is a spiritual force. He inspires you. He makes you realize there's beauty in just going on."

One might react cynically to such a thought. After all, Bruce isn't just existing. He is a supernova of success. This is his fourth phase, marked by a reunion tour with the E Street Band (Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Steve Van Zandt and Max Weinberg). It started in April in Barcelona and hit the States this week in New Jersey. Success isn't an issue (15 shows in Jersey -- more than 300,000 tickets sold in 13 hours). But it's a special kind of success that isn't in the raw numbers of albums or tickets sold. Bruce has stayed who he is through the musical phases that swirled around him: disco, punk, grunge, house, retro-folk and girl-diary confessional. That was there, but it influenced him less than his demons, his soul searching and his obsession with telling the truth did.

Bruce has never been one to wax eloquent in interviews. He recently spent an hour with Charlie Rose that was a waste -- both because Bruce was on his best, formal behavior and because Rose obviously didn't know the music. But it doesn't matter. We don't need any answers that aren't in the music. We know that, whatever happens in his career, Bruce will never be in a beer commercial, he will never act in a Bruce Willis movie and he will never dye his hair blond.

In 1975 he sang, "Someday girl, I don't know when/we're gonna get to that place/Where we really want to go/And we'll walk in the sun/But till then tramps like us/Baby we were born to run."

The sun is shining, and Bruce is still that tramp. Thank God.

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