“He Changed My Life Forever”: Bruce Springsteen Remembers Clive Davis in Touching Eulogy

Bruce Springsteen is remembering Clive Davis. At the late record executive’s New York funeral, Springsteen delivered a touching eulogy. The somber event came one week after Davis died at age 94.

After the mourners heard from speakers including Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow, and Alicia Keys, Springsteen began his speech, which was published in full by Rolling Stone.

“Clive was big, and bombastic, and brave, and full of ideas, and just believed, believed, believed, believed,” Springsteen began. “He dressed like a king, and he was born to run… everything.”

Springsteen then took listeners back to when he first met Davis in 1972. At the time, John Hammond sent a 22-year-old Springsteen to audition for Davis.

“The minute I walked in, Clive came around the desk, and he took my hand in his, and he said, ‘John has told me so much about you. I can’t wait to hear you.’ He was very kind and welcoming,” Springsteen recalled. “… When I finished, Clive, smiling, simply said, ‘Welcome to Columbia Records.’ And in those few words, he changed my life forever. Forever. Nothing’s been the same since that day.”

He added, “On that day, Clive showed a 22-year-old nobody the same warmth, the same kindness, the same respect that he would show me after all my success for the next 50 years. Nothing ever changed.”

Bruce Springsteen Acknowledges Clive Davis’ Impact

Over that time, Springsteen revealed that Davis never missed “a single New York performance I gave.” That continued to be true as recently as April, when a 94-year-old Davis attended Springsteen’s Newark show.

Springsteen noted that Davis afforded many other artists similar time and attention.

“Clive changed so many artists’ and performers’ lives, so many,” he said. “There isn’t a day when I don’t sit on my big front porch, in my big house, surrounded by my big cars, with my big family, looking out over my big yard that Clive doesn’t come somewhere whistling around the top of my brain.”

“He guided the listening public towards so much powerful and inspiring music. And he not only loved music, Clive actually loved the people who made the music, no matter how much of a pain in the ass they were,” Springsteen added. “And he loved those people deeply and permanently.”

Springsteen concluded his speech by reiterating the impact Davis had on his life.

“So, can a kid with a guitar, walk off the streets of New York into an office and into music history today? I don’t know. I don’t know if those times still exist,” he admitted. “But as somebody who’s made that journey, it was an incredible, indescribable, and wonderful miracle. And for me that miracle will always be named Clive Davis.”

Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images

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