Lost in the USA!

Bruce Springsteen learned a difficult lesson the other night -- check your tour itinerary before making any geographical shoutouts from the stage.

The Detroit Free Press says Springsteen opened his Nov. 13 show in Auburn Hills, Mich., with a hearty "Hello, Ohio!" and went on to repeat the mistake several times until Steve Van Zandt corrected him. Springsteen called it "every frontman's nightmare."

In his defense, the band had played Cleveland three nights earlier but I was pretty surprised by this mistake, considering how Springsteen's songs are so full of movement and geographical references and have such a powerful sense of place. But a little research shows Springsteen has long been geographically challenged.

• The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night but he totally missed it because he was lost on the Long Island Expressway.
• "Mary Queen of Arkansas" was originally titled "Mary Queen of Utah."
• Wrote "Galveston Bay" on a visit to Lake Havasu.
• When he and Wayne were driving in to Darlington County, South Carolina, he actually thought he was in Arlington County in Virginia.
• "Incident on 57th Street," "10th Avenue Freezeout," "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street," "Thunder Road," "Streets of Philadelphia," "Highway 29" and "E Street Shuffle" could not have been written without extensive help from Fodor's travel guides.
• The reissue will be called "Greetings from Asbury Park -- or Wherever I Am!"
  
• He was in the sixth grade when he wrote "Crush on You" in hopes of winning the love of his comely geography teacher. She laughed at the song, souring the boy on the subject for the rest of his life.
• Songs have fewer geographical mistakes since the advent of Google maps.
• There's a line in the sing-along song "Hungry Heart" that says "I went out for a ride and I never went back." He fully intended to return but just couldn't find his way home.