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Happy Birthday, the Boss

Chris Evans celebrates the Boss's 65th birthday, playing a brace of Bruce Springsteen tracks. Plus listeners' desperate claims to the fame of 10 Downing Street in the Top Tenuous.

Little Beth from Bournemouth gets today's fanfare for telling us about her very first ever pop concert, watching The Saturdays on a Monday...

We open the door to our Mystery Guest who knows the all-intriguing facts behind 10 Downing Street; he is the accomplished academic and headmaster of Wellington College, Dr Antony Seldon!

And that leads us on to the Top Tenuous with your desperate claims to the fame of that very palatial political place!

Today's show is dedicated to all bosses who are over 65!
And, today's show is entitled...The Boss, Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen, was born on this day in 1949.

2 hours, 59 minutes

Last on

Tue 23 Sep 2014 06:30

Music Played

  • ABBA

    Thank You For The Music

  • Jacqui Abbott & Paul Heaton

    When It Was Ours

    • (CD Single).
    • Virgin EMI Records.
    • 001.
  • The Banana Splits

    The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)

    • Television's Greatest Hits Vol. 5: In Living Color (Various Artists).
    • TVT Records.
  • Bay City Rollers

    I Only Wanna Be With You

  • Blondie

    Call Me

    • Atomic: The Very Best Of Blondie.
    • EMI.
  • Ali Campbell

    I Want You

    • (CD Single).
    • Cooking Vinyl.
    • 001.
  • Chic

    Everybody Dance

    • The Last Days Of Disco (Film Soundtra.
    • Columbia.
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival

    Bad Moon Rising

    • Green River.
    • Fantasy.
    • 1.
  • Dexys Midnight Runners

    Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When you Smile

    • Very Best Of Dexy's Midnight Runners.
    • Mercury.
  • Dr. Feelgood

    Milk And Alcohol

    • EMI.
  • Foreigner

    Cold As Ice

    • 40.
    • Rhino Atlantic.
    • 3.
  • Samantha Fox

    I Only Wanna Be With You

  • Kid Creole and the Coconuts

    Annie I'm Not Your Daddy

    • Fantastic 80's Disc 2 (Various Artis.
    • Columbia.
  • The Killers

    Human

    • Day & Age.
    • Mercury.
    • 1.
  • Manic Street Preachers

    Futurology

    • Futurology.
    • Columbia.
    • 001.
  • Dean Martin & Helen O’Connell

    How D'Ya Like Your Eggs In The Morning?

    • Cool Couples (Various Artists).
    • Sanctuary.
  • Al Martino

    Spanish Eyes

    • The Best Album In The World ...Ever!.
    • BMG.
  • Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

    I Only Want To Be With You

  • Paolo Nutini

    10/10

    • Sunny Side Up.
    • Atlantic.
    • 1.
  • Gregory Porter

    The In Crowd

    • Liquid Spirit.
    • Decca.
  • Shocking Blue

    Venus

    • Dance Hits Of The '60's & '70's.
    • Old Gold.
  • Spandau Ballet

    This Is The Love

    • The Very Best Of Spandau Ballet - The Story.
    • Rhino.
  • Bruce Springsteen

    The River

    • Bruce Springsteen - Greatest Hits.
    • Columbia.
  • Bruce Springsteen

    Glory Days

  • Bruce Springsteen

    Hungry Heart

    • Bruce Springsteen - Greatest Hits.
    • Columbia.
  • Status Quo

    Whatever You Want

    • (CD Single).
    • Polydor.
  • Stereophonics

    Dakota

    • (CD Single).
    • V2.
  • The Tourists

    I Only Want To Be With You

    • Fantastic 70's (Various Artists).
    • Sony Tv/Columbia.
  • U2

    The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone)

    • Songs Of Innocence.
    • Island.
  • The Yardbirds

    For Your Love

    • 25 Years Of Rock'n'Roll - 1965 (Various Artists).
    • Connoisseur Collection.
    • 9.

Pause for Thought

Pause for Thought

From Rabbi Pete Tobias of the Liberal Synagogue, Elstree:

Ìý

A man once tried to impress his rabbi by declaring that he was going to study the special prayerbook used at the High Holydays. That’s the Jewish New Year, which begins tomorrow evening. The rabbi was unimpressed and responded: “The prayer book is exactly the same as it was last year. ÌýÌýYou would do better to study yourself instead!â€

Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, who died seventy-five years ago today, would probably have applauded this suggestion. The idea that a person should consider their behaviour rather than study ancient words in a prayerbook might well fit with his idea of the benefit of analysis. ÌýIndeed, although he’d been brought up as an observant Jew, he considered religion to be ‘…an illusion’.

He put his faith instead in psychoanalysis, which takes the form of ‘a dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst’.

It could be argued that prayer is also a form of dialogue. American Rabbi Emil G Hirsch, who lived at the same time as Freud, once said that ‘true worship is not a petition to God, it is a sermon to our own selves.’ And Victorian poet George Meredith, wrote: ‘whoever rises from prayer a better person, that person’s prayer has been answered.’ Indeed, the root of the Hebrew word to pray, hitpallel, means to look at oneself.

Those who use the coming holy days – or indeed, take time at any stage to analyse their past behaviour and seek to change, would surely gain approval from the rabbi who directed that man to study himself. Approval might also come from Sigmund Freud, and, perhaps, even from the Almighty who, I think, would rather like human beings to spend a little less time studying prayer books or asking for things, preferring them to devote themselves a little more to analysing andÌý - dare I say? - improving their behaviour.

Ìý

Happy New Year!

Broadcast

  • Tue 23 Sep 2014 06:30

Farewell Chris Evans: The best bits from his last shows at Radio 2

After eight years of hosting the Breakfast Show, Chris Evans leaves Radio 2.

500 Words

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 2's story-writing competition for kids.