Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

but i can't think of a better metaphor to explain this. maybe someone can help?

Oh well. You can't start a fire worryin' 'bout your little world fallin' apart.

I was in a really bad relationship at the time.

I still see Born to Run as being a hopeful song but in the context of "Are you going to take this chance or are you going to sit on your ass in your stupid car on the parkway, you loser?" type of kick in the ass way.

I had no patience for Born in the USA for the longest time because I had to take a cross-country roadtrip with my entire family when I was about 12. The only tape my dad felt fit to bring with him, basically, was Born in the USA. 6 days of No Surrender stuck in a car with three screaming young children, a cat, two birds, FOUR dogs and your parents starts to really get to you. Recently I started listening to it again and kind of realized that I think Working on the Highway and Dancing in the Dark and I'm On Fire and I'm Going Down and even No Surrender are some of the greatest moments rock had to offer in the '80s.

But then also there's all those huge unbelieveable hooks, which is what made it sell a zillion copies and made everybody (including Springsteen?) misunderstand what was going on. And it's not like the hooks are bullshit, the hooks are great. There really is joy in the title track, no matter what the words say. I heard Max Weinberg once say that was his favorite song to play, and it shows. That album is really Springsteen grappling head-on with the contradictions between what he wanted to believe and what he actually knew (and what you knew he knew, coming right off Nebraska). It's a great big crisis of faith album, and it resolved nothing at all. "Dancing in the Dark" for damn sure.

Maybe we are just all getting old and losing our idealism.

It's an interesting take, at the least. That said, it slightly begs a question to my mind in that you could apply a similar argument to most anything else that is on-the-face-of-it cheery and hopeful -- if reflection and implied irony is strictly in the realm of the reader (or rather auditor), then theoretically I could apply that to every upbeat Britney song, say.

Then again, some of us might at heart just simply not like most of the music and singing...

I can understand just not liking the music and the singing, mind you, that's in the eye of the beholder. Or, uh, the ear of the auditor.

But they are normal words for me! Grad school does that to you! ;-)

half of America is apparently too stupid to actually LISTEN to the lyrics of Born in the USA

I think this sorta ties in with my argument that I don't listen for the lyrics much in the first place at all. If anything I'd argue I just spell out what most people actually feel when it comes to lyrics in the first place, though I can hardly claim to know everyone's mind on the matter in the Great Wide World. "Born in the USA" wasn't a hit because it was a reflective poetry reading on the meaning of loss and frustration, it was because people got off on the music.

Faulting him for people completely not getting it is kind of unfair.

Ah, my friend, thus we move into the perilous question of how one defines sonics in specifically verbal terms (trust me, I have no answer to that one and never will).

Faulting him for people completely not getting it is kind of unfair.

Is faulting everyone for not understanding what someone is 'really' trying to say equally unfair, though? *shrug* I have no answer to that one. I mean, there are some people who think that Morrissey only sings suicide anthems. I could spend all day arguing about everything from humor to pop references to film-star iconography instead, but I admit it's not really something that troubles me so much.

Actually, this is interesting, because thinking back to when I first heard the song, about the two things that stood out the most were the opening part about a dead man's town and the guy who died in Vietnam. I can't say I was particularly saddened or regretful about any of that, though, I wasn't moved to tears -- was it because I was only 13, was it because Vietnam was just a name and ancient history for me, or (as I'd argue is more likely, but who knows) were they just words?

For the record:

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
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
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said "Son, don't you understand"
I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.

No, I didn't say that -- I merely said I noted that there was a reference to Vietnam, I didn't know it was supposed to be sung by a vet. And I can't say anything else about those lyrics besides those two parts I mentioned stood out for me or were even heard as such -- I remember *at the time* noting those two moments clearly. The rest was just the rest.

Also "Dancing in the Dark" is a much better song than "Born in the USA" or "Glory Days"!

"Clearly this is a song about the joyful feeling of living in a prosperous, well-adjusted society! Go America!"

If I said anywhere it was specifically his fault, then I wasn't clear and I apologize for that. What interests me more is the fact that no matter what the intent of an artist, a listener (or reader or whoever or whatever) need not follow in line with that intent or goal in order to enjoy or appreciate it -- or misuse it, however that's defined. Even when a debate over it gets publicized to a huge degree, it might not change things for a listener -- thus the spat that erupted when Reagan's 1984 campaign wanted to use the song and Springsteen complained that the point was missed. I can't say I was swayed at the time either way but now I appreciate how the GOP misreading came about very easily and am actually more surprised at Springsteen's reaction in turn. His goals may not have been ambiguous, it might not have been his fault, but I have to say I'm not surprised at all such a situation arose.

xpost to a large degree with Blount's 'all most people heard' post.

chorus:
"i am a real american
fight for the rights of every man
i am a real american
fight for your rights
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIIIIIIFE!"

oh man these lines (as sung) are devastating. heh i wonder why they didn't play this on at the democratic national convention.

i agree w/ally that "dancing in the dark" is the grtst thing ever.

will write more in a bit. can't do everyone's posts justice at the moment.

xpost

Best version of "Dancing in the Dark" I ever heard was the 12" extended remix. More beats please.