Bruce Springsteen, champion of the American working-class underdog. Gritty realist. Writer of tight, loud rock songs. A muscular street-tough image. The Boss. The man who released Born in the U.S.A., the cover of which depicts his blue-jeaned ass, a baseball cap, and—of course—the American flag.
He started out, though, as a scrawny, scruffy looking dude, looking a bit like the seedy kind of guy you might see half-awake at 4:30 AM in a booth of some second-rate all-night diner on the side of the road somewhere after too long a night out. His lyrics weren’t plain-spoken working-class tough-guy talk—no, they were over-the-top, virtuoso stuff, spiraling out characters and vignettes like a wilder, reckless Dylan of the streets.
The true Springsteen, of course, is far more complicated than either of these images would suggest, however. Let’s take a look.
Playlist 1: The Rambling, Epic Street Poet
Beginning with Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973) through the classic Born to Run (1975), Springsteen embraced a rich, flowing sound, with epic songs that fused his flashy verbal virtuosity with rock music that could swell to intense heights before downshifting into hushed pathos. Throughout, life on the streets is romanticized and given near-mythological status. It’s wonderful stuff. Born to Run is the classic, but I absolutely love the best moments from Greetings.
Playlist 2: The Spare Minimalist Develops
By the time Springsteen released The River (1980) the songs had shifted into more conventional structures, and the lyrics were more grounded, with genuine empathy overcoming Springsteen’s earlier idealized romanticism of street toughs. It’s hard to envision the youthful Springsteen of “Lost in the Flood” writing and recording a song as starkly haunting (and realistic) as “The River.” What Raymond Carver did for fiction, Springsteen did for rock.
Playlist 3: Haunting and Defiant Tales of the Disenfranchised Working Class
If the spare, devastating Nebraska made Springsteen’s despairing take on the American present crystal clear, the ease with which Born in the U.S.A.’s defiant energy could be misinterpreted and misrepresented as positive patriotism (despite the clear criticism in the lyrics) muddied the picture a little. But the songs remain powerful, even now.
More Springsteen
Springsteen of course has had a long career post-U.S.A., which I will at some point cover on a subsequent playlist. No time for it now.
Cover Art:
- Born to Run: Sources, Discogs.com, FestivalPeak.com, Fair use.
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