Bob Seger on Later with Bob Costas (circa1991)

I mean, he's still out there plugging away and getting things done and all of the above, you know, I think he's a great built-in poetic thing and a fantastic voice that you know helps, he's a great instrument to deliver and I think what I love about Van and what I sometimes forget is that I can tell when Van strays into some kind of zone, maybe like when Vinnie Johnson's jump shots or anything on the court, I know the roots come out, yeah , and you know where he ends up. He just gets to a place where you know the whole world is excluded and he's just singing and you can tell he's in that place, it's almost like a dreamlike trance state when sometimes he sings and that's really what music is. about it, it's almost a jazz concept, if you know what I mean, you just come out and say what the word is, you're just improvising, you know, and that's what I love about Van, is that he'll take a chance on that.

He's going to go on and on and on and you know he's not going to fade away in the end before the magic happens, so to speak, which is the most interesting reaction you've ever had to one of your songs, because songs impact people from different ways. making people feel an emotion that wasn't necessarily what you intended, yeah, and I think that's what you're trying to do, you're trying to leave them as open as possible, but I don't know. I always feel very good, Bob, when I feel it. some reaction to songs that are not so well known, they are their songs that you know deep in the album, like in the similar rock album, this song is called somewhere tonight and I have received a lot of mails about it, people say what great song, you know, boy, I've been there on this new album, Long Way Home seems to be getting a lot of mail, it's just that people are really moved by it and every time that's why I do this, you know, that's why let everyone do this, yes, to make that emotional connection worth it.

There's something strange here and I wasn't sure if I'd tell you this, but I'll stick with it, it's okay with references to someone who, for better or worse, can't change the essential character of him. and the line about the gambler, yeah my dad was a compulsive gambler mm-hmm, my dad was a really funny guy, he died when I was 18, who's funny, he was smart, he had a personality that could fill a room, so he was a compulsive gambler. gambler, I mean, he would bet rent money, you know, on baseball games, football games, anything that his intellect you would think would get him away from it, but emotionally he couldn't get away from me mm-hmm and I had a dream about him that night. when i first heard that song while driving i was about 24 years old in st.

Louis and I heard it on the radio, there was still some top 40 radio that's on some top 40 station mm-hmm and that night I dreamed that I was in a casino in Las Vegas and I had never set foot in Las Vegas. casino in my life but I was walking through the casino mm-hmm and out of the corner of my eye I saw my father at the craps table hmm and I went up to talk to him and things fill up like dreams do where you just know everything the basic information you need even though he hasn't developed on his own mm-hmm and I tried to dissuade him hmm and why he had reincarnated wasn't clear, but well, he couldn't, he couldn't change and there's the soundtrack to this dream, yes, she was still the same, yes, that's wild, that's the first thing I thought when you came in here, we hadn't met before today, yes, I think we've all met people like that, like the antagonist and still So.

The same goes for the person I'm singing about, who is very charismatic, you know, but has tremendous flaws, but part of the appeal is charisma. You overlooked everything because of charisma. I was actually writing about several people. I won't do it. say who I met throughout my life that made me feel about it, you know, maybe that created that character, it was kind of a compilation of people, it wasn't really a particular person, yeah, that was my thought , well my father was like and Obviously you forgive your father, yes, almost anything, he is not a fighter, but his strength of personality would make people even outside the family forgive him, yes, yes, he is a gift and a curse in a way that you know you had to forgive your own father.

Yeah, yeah, he wasn't a bad guy, he just drank a lot and he left us when I was 10 and we were pretty, you know, poor and living. I remember at one point we and my brother lived in a room with bunk beds. and I slept upstairs my mother slept downstairs and the only money that came in was from my brother working as a porter in a supermarket my mother cleaning houses and I was going to high school, you know and you know that I still know that he died in 1968 in Los Angeles , but no, I really don't hold any grudges against him.

I think if I have and I'm sure I have injuries, I haven't done that. I've been in therapy a couple of times in my life for short periods of time, but I think I'm over it. I think maybe one thing is that I think I'll be an overly attentive parent when I become an overly attentive parent for that reason. If you know what I mean, I'll have a way to make up for that. I don't know if that means anything or not, but I know that when I have a child, that's the only thing I'll try to do.

It's not what my father was. We enjoyed these two nights with Bob Seger. I hope you did too. Thanks Bob, it's a pleasure to think about. Okay, see you

later

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