OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

conservatives listen to the boss?

maura just said brooks wrote about him, maybe that doesn't necessarily mean he listened

Loads. xp

insert 100 jokes about not listening to the "born in the usa" lyrics

I think this review is embarrassing and I *am* an old white guy

Bruce Springsteen is music for conservatives.

if you define conservatives in a way that means pining for a traditionalism that never existed, sure

how do u figure? springsteen's music is as much or more about the tragedies of a supposed idyllic time than it is about celebrating it. unless that traditionalism means a time when guitar music reigned supreme.

it depends what lens you use to look at it. if you think of blue collar, small town people who have been kicked around and screwed over, and this idea that there's some ideal working man's america out there... some sort of american greatness that's been bruised not by you or me but by the man

if you take that and remove all the trappings of social justice that Springsteen believes in, which you don't necessarily get from a surface reading, you end up with "america was great"

This thread is spawning some candidates for OP's question on its own

Well, it's backwards looking musically. The review uses a quote from Springsteen on how he never wanted band democracy, and that's central as well. It's individualistic music, it's music for pulling yourself up by your boostraps, rather than of systemic oppression (or, as it's otherwise known: The real world). Bruce hasn't even gone through a self-negating phase like for instance Dylan, no, it's his band that he keeps breaking up and getting back together. The leader stays, the collective is rearranged. And while he has tried to broaden it, the central individual in the Springsteen mythos remains the great white male.

Conservative music can be good, though. I really enjoyed a Springsteen festival show a few years back, danced like mad. But there's a conservative core to Springsteen, and it bothers me everytime Born in the USA is presented as this liberal song getting horribly misread, when it contains such a heap of jingoistic, patriotic sentiment in the choruses, and music throughout. Springsteen wrote a song that didn't bring across the sentiment he aimed for, don't blame Reagan for figuring that out.

All of this is imo, obviously.

i guess i'm thinking about songs like "the river" where it may be about the white working class but it's super bleak + depressing

if only being white and working class could be... great again

The River is about tragedies of the present, it's implied that things were better in the past ('I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company / But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy') There's a sense of being trapped by tradition - being expected to do as your father, and, well, the fact that the couple don't just get an abortion - but it's still also a song about how things used to be better.

Another thing that kinda weirds me out, is if the song is about Springsteen's sister and brother in law, how come Mary is a complete non-entity? Isn't it kinda weird that Springsteen was able to invent an inner life for the character based on his brother-in-law, but the one based on his sister vanishes once she gets pregnant, and the only description of her is that she was 'tan and wet'? There's a hierarchy to who's inner suffering is worthy of portrayal.

What's the best Bruce Springsteen song about a woman? I'm no expert.

certainly his most passionate love song is "Bobby Jean" directed at a man.

I'm no expert

lol

Bruce Springsteen is music for conservatives.

― Frederik B, Monday, September 26, 2016 4:50 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wouldn't go that far, but Bruce does seem to be the 'cool' artist conservatives embrace. And it's probably wise to leave in depth analysis of song lyrics out of it, as his conservative public does not seem to mind. Speaking solely for the Netherlands, I could give you a list of ten big conservative/right wing pundits or politicians flaunting their love for Bruce every chance they get. No other musician is (ab)used that way iirc. The most blatantly bigot, racist right wingers all claim Bruce, almost as if they use him to show they have a heart (which they don't). It's his rugged masculinity and drive to keep going strong at his age that seems to appeal to something these people admire.

Bruce Springsteen is probably the most easily misunderstood musician of our days. A battlefield over which the left and right surge and fight to claim him.

#trenchant

if Brooks and George Will are explaining him, I'm happy he remains misunderstood *plays Tunnel of Love*

LBI, that's kinda what I mean. Consevatives love Bruce Springsteen = It's music for conservatives. It's not enough for me to say 'but they misunderstand'. The interesting part is why he is so 'easily misunderstood', which to my mind is the same thing as saying that he's politically confused, vague and weak. Which would of course be something conservatives would love in working class heroes.

marco rubio loves NWA and public enemy

conservatives love all kinds of music, a lot of ppl don't really give a shit they don't necessarily spend their lives connecting the music they listen and their own beliefs. i have a friend who's the president of a hydraulics company he inherited from his father and he loves fugazi the most.

do you guys know actual american republicans that like Springsteen beyond playing singles or is this some thing where any american patriotic or nostalgic tendency sounds conservative

chris christie loves bruce springsteen = it's music for chris christie

41 Shots, for example. Try go to it's genius-page and see the discussion of the text. Is the 'American Skin' meant to say that all Americans live in danger of gun violence, or is it about racism? And the second verse, where a mother instructs her child what to do if the police comes by, is that about how Amadou allegedly failed to do as he was told, or is it about how African-American families have to have this conversation over and over and over? Well, it's kinda hard to say, because it's deliberately vague, it can be read both ways. But, for instance, perhaps if the names of the mother and son in the second verse wasn't Lena and Charles, it would be clearer. Yet over and over in his music, Springsteen hedges his bets when he goes political, always moves in the direction of the general.

chris christie loves new jersey, you see

haha just kidding no one loves new jersey

Try go to it's genius-page and see the discussion of the text.

finally we're back to the thread title

it's weird how often the T-Bone manifesto is getting referenced as some sort of piece of great thinking

NYT just offered it to me as "the single best critique on the modern technological society and its effect on culture and politics"
uh?

Nice of Frederik to put his own worst music writing directly in this thread rather than waiting for someone to find it

Lol

omg lol

*farts*

it bothers me everytime Born in the USA is presented as this liberal song getting horribly misread, when it contains such a heap of jingoistic, patriotic sentiment in the choruses, and music throughout. Springsteen wrote a song that didn't bring across the sentiment he aimed for, don't blame Reagan for figuring that out.

― Frederik B, Monday, September 26, 2016 3:31 PM (yesterday)

this is fucking ridiculous

one might guess the writer was not born in the united states

Bruce Springsteen is a conservative because he depicts the decline of the working class as a political and economic force which technically happened but saying anything in the past was better than the present is a tacit endorsement of racism

Is I think his argument here it's kind of unclear

no it is because he likes america as an abstract idea and not just a place you can live

repeating the words born in the usa over and over again is jingoistic and patriotic cuz it's jingoistic and patriotic to have been born in the usa

bruce springsteen is 67 years old and plays four-hour shows featuring guitars; he is inherently conservative

It's possible to think Springsteen didn't quite know what he'd unleashed when he repeated the title over Weinberg's drums and that synth fanfare and that Frederik is bananas.

mookie has a point

bruce springsteen is 67 years old and plays four-hour shows featuring guitars

and his primary guitar dates to the eisenhower era

how much do you have to wilfully misread something before it no longer qualifies as "reading"

<3 u fact checking cuz

perhaps, as a bo diddley beat aficionado, you'd be interested in Songs where a musician starts "ernie-ing"/summoning up the great musical god Ernie.

hang on i thought when it came to US politics Fred was all about stuff that was politically vague, confused and fundamentally conservative?

didn't read, don't know about the author

6 BANDS NAMED AFTER VAGINAS YOU'LL BE TOTALLY INTO
THIS WAY FOR PUNS.

BRENNA EHRLICH
08/07/2015

i never felt like there was anything to misinterpret about born in the u.s.a. americans love to feel sorry for themselves. that's why it's called country music. it's a very patriotic song. trump could easily use it as an anthem. the anti-government message works well with his crowd. the lyrics are terrible though. "summertime blues" said it better and said it quicker.

it really sounds like the prelude to a Falling Down/Taxi Diver style tantrum... or something

(BitUSA)

this has gotta be on purpose and bear with it but

https://festivalpeak.com/an-open-letter-to-drake-dj-khaled-and-the-rap-world-84cd4940deb4#.qslc42y8e