The River 2016 Tour ends with another monster show at Gillette Stadium in Boston, MA. Incidentally, this is exactly, to the date, 35 years after the original tour ended

On his birthday Bruce releases a new compilation album that is a companion to his upcoming autobiography. The album is called Chapter & Verse and includes previously unreleased tracks from as far back as The Castiles, Steel Mill and Bruce Springsteen Band days as well as well-known tracks from throughout his career.

Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born to Run is published worldwide. He has been working on it on and off since 2009. It is met with much critical acclaim that focuses on Bruce's revelations of his depressions and his father's mental illness.

Bruce is busy promoting his autobiography by doing book signing appearances in several US cities as well as Toronto and even London. He also sits down for a couple of book talks where he is interviewed in front of an audience and reads from his book sporting a pair of not very rock 'n' roll reading glasses.

Bruce makes his only election campaign appearance, performing at a rally for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia. In his speech he has the following to say about Donald Trump: "This is a man whose vision is limited to little beyond himself, who has a profound lack of decency that would allow him to prioritize his own interests and ego before American democracy itself. Somebody who'd be willing to damage our long-cherished and admired system rather than look to himself for the reasons behind his own epic failure."

Unfortunately, Bruce's speech and performance of "Thunder Road" and "Long Walk Home" makes no difference for the election result and Trump wins not only Pennsylvania but the election.

In what may be the biggest honor of his life, Bruce Springsteen receives the Presidential Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony. The medal is presented by President Obama personally. Bruce is one among several honorees. They include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ellen DeGeneres, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, Diana Ross, and Bill Gates.

Obama's remarks about Springsteen: "He was sprung from a cage out on Highway 9. Quiet kid from Jersey, just trying to make sense of the temples of dreams and the mystery that dotted his hometown: poolhalls, bars, girls and cars, altars and assembly lines. And for decades, Bruce Springsteen has brought us all along on a journey consumed with the bargains between ambition and injustice, and pleasure and pain, the simple glories and scattered heartbreak of everyday life in America.

To create one of his biggest hits, he once said, "I wanted to craft a record that sounded like the last record on Earth. The last one you'd ever need to hear. One glorious noise. Then the Apocalypse." Every restless kid in America was given a story, "Born to Run."

He didn't stop there - once he told us about himself, he told us about everybody else: the steelworker in "Youngstown," the Vietnam vet in "Born in the U.S.A.," the sick and marginalized on the "Streets of Philadelphia," the firefighter carrying the weight of a reeling but resilient nation on "The Rising," the young soldier reckoning with "Devils & Dust" in Iraq, the communities knocked down by recklessness and greed and the "Wrecking Ball." All of us with our faults and our failings, every color and class and creed, bound together by one defiant, restless train rolling toward the "Land of Hope and Dreams." These are all anthems of our America, the reality of who we are and the reverie of who we want to be.

"The hallmark of a rock 'n' roll band," Bruce Springsteen once said, "is that the narrative you tell together is bigger than anyone could have told on your own." And for decades - alongside the Big Man, Little Steven, a Jersey girl named Patti, and all the men and women of the E Street Band - Bruce Springsteen has been carrying the rest of us on his journey, asking us all, What is the work for us to do in our short time here?

I am the President, he is the Boss. And pushing 70, he is still laying down four-hour live sets- if you have not been at them, he is working. Firebreathing rock 'n' roll. So I thought twice about giving him a medal for freedom, because we hope he remains, in his words, a "prisoner of rock 'n' roll" for years to come."

Bruce returns to the White House days before Barack Obama is replaced by Donald Trump to perform a private acoustic show for members of Obama's staff as well as the President himself and the First Lady.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band head downunder for another round of shows in what can no longer be called The River Tour 2016, but instead is simply dubbed the "Summer '17" tour (it is summer in Australia in January). The shows on this leg are an hour shorter, but no less intense than where Bruce left off in the fall of 2016. After the "New York City Serenade" opener of the first show, which takes place in Perth, Bruce addresses the chaotic political situation in the US by declaring himself and the band part of the new American Resistance.

The tour Downunder ends in Auckland, New Zealand, and the band heads back home for a another hiatus.

On this day Bruce is spotted in Tahita on a huge yacht owned by David Geffen. He is in company of Barack and Michele Obama, Tom Hanks, and Oprah Winfrey. The famous group also goes for a bicycle ride together.