by LORRAINE CARPENTER

More often than not, meeting your hero is a disappointing scenario, but there are exceptions to the illusion-shattering rule, such as this one...

Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, is touring with a sextet in support of One Plus One Is One, his fourth LP of easygoing, everyman pop songs. One of them, "Life Turned Upside Down," was inspired by a truly meaningful brush with greatness that took root in 1999, in Gough's hometown, Manchester.

"I felt like a bit of a stalker," Gough admits. "Me and my girlfriend Claire booked ourselves into a hotel in the hopes that Bruce [Springsteen] might stay there, and he did, but I didn't approach him. I was speechless."

Gough managed some small talk when "the Boss" approached him in the hotel bar, to thank "the kid" who had handed his bodyguard a CD earlier in the day.

Fast forward to last year, after the success of the (Boss-approved) Hour of Bewilderbeast and About a Boy LPs, when Gough and his girlfriend arranged a more official meeting, minutes before Springsteen's latest Manchester gig.

"Bruce walked out and gave us a big hug, and I gave him a copy of the Have You Fed the Fish? album, which I'd signed - I never asked him for an autograph, I just couldn't do it, but I gave him mine." Just before saying goodbye, Gough divulged that he'd named his young son Oscar Bruce. Then it was show time.

"So I was down front watching the gig with my mom and dad when he said, ‘This song goes out special for Oscar Bruce,' and started playing ‘Thunder Road.' I got a bootleg of the show to make sure it really happened. I was quite tearful 'cause, 20 years ago, I used to go to sleep every night listening to Springsteen shows from the '70s on headphones, and that part of his career inspired me to do what I'm doing, so ‘Life Turned Upside Down' was written with all that in mind," he says. "That's a long story. I don't think you'll have space in the article for anything else."

With Adem at Club Soda on Wednesday,
Nov. 24, 8 p.m., $22.50, all ages

>> Music Listings