For a long time, Bruce Springsteen was seen as American as apple pie and waving flags – with all the good and bad that entails.
I considered myself too cool for Bruce for an awful long time, and it was really only after I moved to New Zealand nearly 20 years ago that I started to get what he was really all about.
The thing is, I came of age when Bruce was in peak “Born In The USA” stardom, a swaggering figure in tight blue jeans who felt, well, kind of cheesy during a time when I was more into the sexy pulses of Prince or the inescapable Michael Jackson (yes, I have regrets there). Springsteen, somehow, felt like dad rock to me.
The problem was, Born In The USA the album and song did too well, and Springsteen’s image got solidified in that early MTV age as the all-American troubadour dancing in front of an American flag, no matter how much his lyrics indicated otherwise. Springsteen hit that rare peak stardom when what the entertainer is actually singing about matters less than their place as a cultural signifier, where who they are is less important than what they represent.
It’s amazing that 40+ years on, people still mishear “Born In The USA” as some swaggering anthem of Yankee superiority. Heck, I did too for way too long.
With “Born In The USA,” all many people heard is the chorus, without realising how much of a sad hopeful wail it was. It’s about American dreams and the darkness behind them. Heck, how could a song with lyrics like “Got in a little hometown jam / So they put a rifle in my hand / Sent me off to a foreign land / To go and kill the yellow man” ever be interpreted as some patriotic anthem?
But in America, image – and surface – is everything.
I wouldn’t say I disliked Bruce, but just felt he was a little uncool for a hip young fellow to be listening to as I delved into Depeche Mode and The Cure fandom. His work is very short on ironic detachment and long on sincerity – virtues I value more now than I once did. I did like the spooky atmospherics of “Tunnel of Love,” or the nifty twang he gave to the chorus on “Lucky Town,” and the very first time I finally heard “The River,” I realised Springsteen was a writer who could sum up an awful lot in a few short verses:
“Now all them things that seemed so important / Well, mister, they vanished right into the air / Now I just act like I don’t remember / And Mary acts like she don’t care”
Springsteen’s work has always been about speaking truth and he continues to do so to this day, blasting the current man in the White House relentlessly, no matter how the beer-swilling “Bruuuuuce” fans shout back. It might seem funny to call a millionaire rock star pretty courageous for doing that, but these days, courage is in short supply on the American scene.
It took me far too long to delve deeply into Springsteen’s impressive discography, and realise how much he’s always been about challenging the American dream instead of idealising it.
I cracked into Bruce Springsteen’s mammoth new box set on the weekend, Tracks II, which compiles a whopping seven unreleased albums from the Boss over his prolific career. (So far, the gem is the spooky, drum loop driven songs in The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions). The bounty of this set once again reminded me of how much broader Springsteen’s message has been than the pumping chorus of “Born In The USA.”
America is so into its own mythology and mythmaking. The perils of that can be seen in the news every single day now. Sometimes I’m amazed by how chill and self-effacing New Zealand generally is by comparison.
The thing is, no matter what you might think of the USA these days, “Born In The USA” is still a great song, maybe because it carries within it all the contradictions and hopes of a country that has never quite been as great as it likes to imagine it could be.
I haven’t lived in America for an awful long time now, but listening to Bruce Springsteen always seems to evoke the open-hearted good times I had there and the promise and potential that so often falls short. I don’t really mark the Fourth of July down here any more but if I do, it’ll be by listening to some Springsteen.
Nik Dirga 