Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

(Misinterpreting “BITUSA” the song is dumb too, but at least I know that really happened)

Ugh "No Surrender" is the bane of the album for me. Should've swapped it out for "Pink Cadillac."

Should have swapped it out for "This Hard Land," which I would have put in place of "Working on the Highway" on side one, and maybe moved "Highway" to the start of side 2. "No Surrender" has always been a full-on "album track" to me.

I like BitUSA just fine, but if he wanted to, he could've saved his B-sides and released a solid follow-up just months later using those and other outtakes - "Frankie," "This Hard Land," "Pink Cadillac," "County Fair," "Shut Out the Light," "My Love Will Not Let You Down," "Janey, Don't You Lose Heart," "Wages of Sin," "Man at the Top," "Lion's Den," "Stand On It," "Johnny Bye-Bye"...that's more than enough.

That would work better imo than trying to sub any of those b-sides or outtakes into the album itself, since BITUSA has such an identifiable sound, and there's a lot more variety in the outtakes.

You've all heard my thoughts on "No Surrender" before; I've never understood why people think it's hopeful. I've always found it one of the more depressing songs on the album, a midlife crisis in song form. Frustration with your friend/lover/partner/whoever for getting older and not wanting the same things you both wanted together when you were younger, because it's easier to be angry at them than to acknowledge that you're getting older too.

I like the line about the energy of the album being a prolonged runner's high, but the rest of this essay doesn't really match my sense of what Born in the USA is.

I have a hard time mentally moving the tracks of BITUSA around because I feel like a lot of the songs come in pairs. Darlington County and Working on the Highway are a pair; so are Downbound Train and I'm on Fire - two Nebraska tracks that still sound like Nebraska - and then Bobby Jean and No Surrender. I've never seen that kind of sequencing anywhere else and it's one of the weird things about the album that I like so I wouldn't want to mess with it.

It’s obviously a helluva challenge to review a totemic album from the ‘80s… the two paragraphs in the middle where he’s talking about the album’s sound are great, but I think Sodomsky tried to find his way in via a side door and sort of got lost.

I agree, but I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea to focus on Steve's departure from the band, which I do find interesting because it's kind of a fault line in the middle of the album. I mean, one of the things that really stands out to me about Bitusa is how much recording time it covers, so that it ends up tracking a change in Bruce's songwriting over a couple of years. The album to me feels like half Nebraska - pure dangerous isolation - and half a struggle to break free from that kind of isolation; desperate energy and a sense of reaching out for any kind of human connection, however tenuous.

And I think Steve leaving is probably part of that change, from like a "let's psychoanalyze Bruce!" standpoint. For one thing, it means the collapse of any illusion that the band is just going to be a family forever. If you're a naturally family-oriented guy and you've been relying on your coworkers to fill that space in your life, that would be a fairly jarring wake-up call.

a sense of reaching out for any kind of human connection, however tenuous

One might even call it... a human touch

It's kind of remarkable that his second most famous foil spent so little time actually recording in the band during its formative years.

He did, however, choose one recent news item to react to — a certain lyrical debate that peaked just as Springsteen on Broadway went on break. After singing the first line of "Thunder Road" — "The screen door slams, Mary's dress sways" — Bruce took a dramatic pause before repeating that last word, speaking it loudly and clearly: "Sways."

LMAO

I was just at the Tuesday show! Can confirm.

Actually posted this in the wrooong forum.

Anyway, finally got around to revisiting Born in the USA, and surprisingly I loved it without reservation.

I was going to listen to it in light of that Pitchfork article, but I got caught up in other records, and in the meantime famed Columbia exec Walter Yetnikoff died. Never heard of the guy so all the crazy stories about him were new to me. Anyway, I bring that up because as soon as I put it on, I remembered Yetnikoff's comments about hearing it for the first time, and I really thought about what that would be like: it's 1984, you're a label exec, and this record lands on your desk, completely new and ready for company review. No one outside of Bruce's camp has heard it. There's no baggage or anything. Somehow that helped me really zero in on the words, and I came away with a much greater appreciation for the album.

Springsteen has been down on it for being too grab bag rather than a cohesive statement, but I think that may help - sometimes a concept can burden an album, where everything's got to have its place in a pre-designed narrative. In this case we just run the full gamut of material, and naturally they all feel like they flow through the same characters and occupy the same community. To me, that's enough for cohesiveness. And the stories are brilliantly detailed. Just about everything that catches a character's eye is perfect. I know it was fashionable to knock it for being pop or sounding dated, but so what? That's kind of what I like about it - having ultra-catchy, slick pop songs like these carrying these lyrical details and these types of stories.

Another thing I realized is how much I don't like the videos. Springsteen got top talent to direct them, but they do seem reductive and corny in retrospect. That really sank in with "Dancing in the Dark" - again thinking like I've never heard this before, the words rise up to the surface and it kind of feels like it's a guy at home alone in the dark, twitching with energy and anxiety, dying to get out of his rut, out of his life, etc. I guess that video helped sell it, but it seems miles in the opposite direction of what it really evokes.

if you don’t love Bruce dancing in his Bruce way then i don’t know what to tell you

for me that video was a MOMENT and it still feels that way even though i am not 9 years old anymore

i dunno. maybe you have to connect w the wish fulfillment aspect for it to really click?

anyway i love it

I have nothing against the dancing in itself. I get a huge kick out of that bootleg video floating around of Springsteen energetically leading the E Street Band into learning some dance moves circa 1984. I love it! It ain't Prince, but amazingly it all works at its own level.

I don't like the videos because of how they're interpreting the song, but I get that videos (for better or worse) can actually strip context and be be enjoyed in a different way on its own. It's likely most of my favorite videos are really like that - not for how they're interpreting or expanding a song but how they play on their own with the music being incidental.

Anyway, I don't deny those videos were very much part of that huge moment when Springsteen became bigger than Coca-Cola. I don't think a cultural moment of that size could have happened at that time without videos almost any listener would know.

It's corny, but I think a lot of Bruce's songs, certainly live, are about just giving in to the party vibe and enjoying yourself. The themes of his fun songs are almost never hedonistic, not in the least, just kind of celebrations, a release and embrace of the weekend after a long week. So Bruce dancing, or him giving Clarence a kiss, or whatever, it's never sexual, it's just being silly and having fun. And a nice balance to the heavy stuff.

It is a good question, though, whether Springsteen would have been as popular without MTV. Maybe not *as* popular, but he was one of those guys, like Metallica, that was already filling pretty big places more or less based on word of mouth alone, certainly without the benefit of videos. In 1981, Springsteen filled (for example) the local arena here, so momentum was on his side, which might have been more or less on par with Prince around the same general time, though of course Prince already had more hits (and music videos) and was soon dominant enough to keep Bruce from that first number one record.

Listening to the official nugs release for August 20, 1985 - didn't notice this until now, but the Band's studio version of "Atlantic City" released in 1993 is based on the full-band live arrangement heard here. (The Band basically made it all acoustic, adding mandolins, an accordion instead of a synthesizer, etc.) Always thought it was a nice arrangement, but credited it to the Band.

I take poster birdistheword's point to be specific -- that 'dancing in the dark' is a dark song, or a song that involves or emerges or struggles with darkness -- and the video doesn't recognise any of that.

(But I haven't seen any of these videos for a long time, if ever. Did 'born in the USA' itself ever have a video?!)

Yes. Directed by John Sayles.

xpost Of course even the "Nebraska" version has mandolin, doesn't it? So it was always on his mind.

The videos also turn Bruce into a physicalized version of the songs’ narrators, and kind of makes the songs situations “iconic” instead of living purely in the imagination. I’ve always held up the Tunnel of Love photos as what I haven’t liked about Annie Liebowitz’s photos from that era, as perfectly staged as they are.

Thinking of Tom Joad’s songs in this context, and how they do live more as short stories because Bruce never did a video or photo session around the songs in a way that inserted his image into them.

xxp Thanks pinefox, that's a more succinct explanation.

And "Born in the USA" did have a video, directed by John Sayles - Springsteen knows his auteurs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ

(Josh beat me to it - ugh I'm too slow with typing)

xxxxp Yeah, I really love that about Springsteen's music, and it really distinguishes itself from, say, the Eagles. In fact, I would say it's enjoying oneself in a very communal sense. They're utopian thrills - everyone is entitled to them, everyone is a part of it.

Re: MTV, I agree, he would still be massively popular, but at minimum it does make a huge difference for someone looking back who wasn't really there. Think about how much the Beatles encapsulated the '60s and how much of that was dependent on what was broadcast all around the world. They still would've sold a lot of records, but being seen on TV, etc. definitely made an impression that's lasted over the years. It really makes a difference in establishing history (or at least the historical record).

Re: videos, the very first video I've ever seen of Bruce Springsteen was "Streets of Philadelphia." I didn't really know Springsteen until his legendary height had past (though he was still massively famous).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2DtNW79sQ

So that was all I knew of Springsteen's image in the beginning, but I did get a hint that it was a little different because some guy in the room said something like "who's this bum moping around complaining about the world" (he didn't know what the song was about or what film it was from, he was just being a smartass) and I was like "Bruce Springsteen." And immediately he went "holy shit...that's Springsteen?"

I like the “I’m on Fire” video (also directed by Sayles)… It’s better than some feature films! (haha)

“Glory Days” (yet another by Sayles) also memorable.

The "Dancing" video was shot the first night of the tour, iirc, by De Palma, and was the first single, too, wasn't it? So my guess is they wanted to gloss right over the darker subtext of the lyrics and play up Bruce the entertainer, especially for his first "real" music video. Worked!

Growing up at the time, being on the east coast, I kind of got a victory celebration feel from BitUSA, like it was less of a breakthrough and more of a peak of his local-guy-done-good ascent. That's sort of the same vibe as (later) Metallica's "And Justice for All" or the Cure's "Disintegration" or even DM's "Violator" (all helped to some extent by videos). Sure, they crossed over, and I'm sure for some those were the first (and last) albums bought from those respective acts, but their fan bases has been getting bigger and bigger all along, anyway, and just absorbed all these new fans all at once, too.

I doubt Bruce would’ve been as huge without MTV, but it’s hard to imagine a counterfactual 80s pop landscape in which MTV doesn’t exist.

I heard "Dancing in the Dark" before I knew much about Bruce, and I remember how striking those lyrics were when I first focused in on them. It's hard to remember at this distance, when I've listened to it so much that its edges have been worn off. But I think the darkness and self-loathing of the lyrics stood out to me a lot when I first heard it, and even the energy of the song felt restless and fidgety rather than fun.

This is one reason why I really love listening to the live concert downloads; sometimes there's just enough newness to let me back into that feeling of hearing a song for the first time. In the performances from the Bitusa tour, there's a little "sometiiiimmmes... I just feel so lonely," bit that Bruce does toward the end of "Dancing in the Dark." I was listening to the latest release, from 1985, and this time he added, "I feel so ugly," and it was really jolting, in a good way. Like, oh, that's what it felt like to hear "wanna change my clothes my hair my face" for the first time.

iirc he and the band rarely played it on the reunion tour, if at all. But it slowly found its way into subsequent tours, and the times I saw him play it were just such a joy.

I dug out Glory Days for the “Dancing In The Dark” video info, and it was played twice on the opening night of the tour, with the house lights up, in order to get the right camera angles etc. Regarding the contrast between the lyrics and the video, Greil Marcus wrote, “On record, the song is about blind faith and struggle; here, as the comic Bobcat Goldthwait put it, Springsteen looks like a member of Up With People.”

DePalma was Bruce’s second choice. He spent a day shooting with Jeff Stein (who’d made The Kids Are Alright and I think a Cars video or two), but it didn’t work, for whatever reason.

I think Dancing in the Dark is a Good Bad Video. I wouldn't call it good in the sense that "Brilliant Disguise" and "One Step Up" are good, but I like it. It's big and cheesy and performative and try-hard and awkward, and Springsteen looks like he's playing the part of a hot muscle-bound pop star and doesn't feel quite comfortable with it yet. And none of that really matches the darkness of the song, but what it does match - maybe more than it means to - is the feeling of self-consciousness and effort and wanting desperately to transform yourself and making it work by sheer force of will, which is also part of the song and is definitely part of my whole sense of Born in the USA the album.

Lily – you should, like, write a book on Bruce (assuming you haven’t). I’d buy it immediately!

“Wanna go see some live music at My Father’s Place Thursday night?”

“Let’s wait until Friday night because I heard Alex Taylor is playing. I promise you totally won’t regret this decision for the rest of your goddamn life or anything.” pic.twitter.com/bh3So26RRr

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) August 21, 2021

Lol

xp wow morrisp, thank you so much for saying that! I've never written anything for publication, but I hope some day I can get my act together and make myself more of a writer. That's a huge confidence boost and I really appreciate it.

Lily – you should, like, write a book on Bruce (assuming you haven’t). I’d buy it immediately!

― Shallot Shortage 2021 (morrisp), Saturday, August 21, 2021 6:53 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seriously

Might be just a matter or editing your posts in this thread together

This might be the best thread on ILM

I have a hard time mentally moving the tracks of BITUSA around because I feel like a lot of the songs come in pairs. Darlington County and Working on the Highway are a pair; so are Downbound Train and I'm on Fire - two Nebraska tracks that still sound like Nebraska - and then Bobby Jean and No Surrender. I've never seen that kind of sequencing anywhere else and it's one of the weird things about the album that I like so I wouldn't want to mess with it.

Loved this^

Book aside, would totes listen to a Lily & JIC 'Are You Talkin' Bruce At Me' pod.

And Furthermore Are You Emailing Me About the E Street Band?

All praise otm. Also I really appreciated the Obama podcast commentary cuz I'm not going near that

Great posts from JiC as well, for sure

would totes listen to a Lily & JIC 'Are You Talkin' Bruce At Me' pod.

― “Heroin” (ft. Bobby Gillespie) (C. Grisso/McCain)

Would subscribe to the patreon

Anyway I was actually thinking of starting a thread for albums with unusual structures. The two I had in mind each have a pair of songs or tracks, but you're right, I can't think of another album with three consecutive pairs of songs in the middle.

Any thoughts as to the structural role of the 6 'outer' songs? BitUSA is so much bigger and redder musically- like, there's a striking contrast, I think, between the monumental scale of the opening track and the rest of the album, but in particular the last song. And the national/local scale thing is spelled in the song titles, but that's all i got.

I would totally read a Lily Bruce book!

BitUSA was one of the first albums i had on tape as a kid, i think my very first unsophisticated impressions were of different light

...different light sources. A few of the songs were daylit, cover me had more of an 'indoor' feel, dancing in the dark had a distinct torchlight glow etc.

I listened to it once a couple of months ago but otherwise hadn't heard it since childhood

I know BITUSA better than most albums, from hearing it so much as a kid; but probably haven't listened to it all the way through in... 35 years? Looking at the track list now, I'm a little surprised at how it shakes out – "Cover Me" is track 2? "Dancing in the Dark" is the next-to-last song? I would have thought for sure that the "Darlington"/"Highway" pair fell on Side 2... etc.

xp You guys are so kind, and this is all filling me with combined elation and despair because I would LOVE to write a Bruce book but I have no confidence at all that I could do it. I'm one of those people who writes essays just for myself and puts them away and never sends them out. And I have a lot of impostor syndrome when it comes to writing about music because I know so little about it. But I want to write for publication, I'm just paralyzed by how confusing and daunting it seems. This is lovely encouragement to start trying.

I think of BitUSA as having a kind of v-shape to it - a journey down into the depths of Nebraska and then a climb back up, ending with a song that has a lot of reflective sadness to it but also less desperation, less anger, and more sustained human connection than the rest of the album.

For real, this is the only book I wanna read right now. So, so sorry if this causes you despair of any kind :(

Just wanna say that if you don't know a lot about music, it really doesn't seem to be getting in your way at all. This is everything I want from music writing but never really get.

I can totally relate to not having confidence, not finishing things, don't wanna push. You have something to offer that I don't think anyone else has. We have every confidence that you can do this. Or if this thread and board is where it's on offer, that's great too, I'm so glad to have found it.

I think of BitUSA as having a kind of v-shape to it - a journey down into the depths of Nebraska and then a climb back up, ending with a song that has a lot of reflective sadness to it but also less desperation, less anger, and more sustained human connection than the rest of the album.

Yeah :)