-
The “Nebraska” Album. I have read various accounts of its recording and the story always starts the same; Bruce goes home, records a bunch of songs on a 4-track home studio tape. At this point the stories diverge. I have read accounts that describe the original tape as just the basis for the ultimate recording, as well as one recently (can’t remember where) which states that the cassette that Bruce carried around in his pocket for five months directly became the CD that you can buy today. What is the SD on this one?
-
“Born in the USA” (the song) – Originally a “Nebraska” tune. Released on the eponymous album, smash hit, co-opted by Reagan, said co-opting protested by Bruce as misinterpreting the song’s message of despair faced by the working man in mid-80s America.
If you “just” read the lyric sheet it’s easy to see why Bruce would be upset. But on the other hand, if you “just” listen to the music, you (or at least I) hear an up-tempo, upbeat “anthem” that seems utterly incompatible with the underlying lyrics/mood.
One can say “well, that’s just irony”, but man, if it is, it’s plenty subtle. Is there some other explanation? Does anyone have any ideas on what I am missing? Or resources on Bruce (or others) commenting on what appears to me to be somewhat of a paradoxical/contradictory situation?
- It is possible that the account you read recently about the tape becoming the album was from a New York Times review of the Nebraska tribute album that recently came out:
Is it true? Who knows at this point? If you could get the Boss on the phone, you might hear a different version of the story. Then again, the tale quoted above fits quite well into the underlying mythos of rock and roll, and thus, whether it’s true or not, it will probably be considered canonical.
- “Born in the U.S.A.,” probably did not start out as the anthem we have all come to know and despise after hearing it roughly 10 billion times. It was probably four-tracked along with the rest of the Nebraska tunes, and then got punched up to fit many of the other slickly produced tunes-- “Glory Days,” “Dancing in the Dark,” etc.-- on “Born in the U.S.A.”
I don’t have any firsthand knowledge our source to cite you on this one (I’m only answering it to preserve the parallel structure of the original question), but I’d be willing to bet that “Born” was just reworked from a solo Bruce tune into a full E Street Band recording. With so many people on stage, there’s not a lot of room for subtlety, so he figured he’d turn a simple protest song into an angry anthem. Plus, it fit well with the arena rock mood of the 80’s.
-
That is exactly where I read it; thanks. But does anyone have more information? This is, after all, the Board Where All Knoweldge Exists.
-
OK, that’s the “how” (most likely). But what about the “why”? After all Bruce has never “forgotten” how to write a down-tempo protest-type song, e.g. “The River”. Nor is there any rule that says you can’t have an up-tempo protest song, e.g. CCR’s “Fortunate Son”. But there’s no mistaking “Fortunate Son” for “Born in the USA” by a long shot in terms of any doubt about what the song is really about. Any thoughts?
From an occasional Springsteen listener:
(2) No sources here, but my recollection is that when he put out that box set of outtakes and such a few years ago, the original version of “Born in the USA” was included. I have not heard the recorded version, but when I saw him on that solo acoustic tour around '96, he played the song as a Delta blues, heavy on the slide. Sounded great, and very hard to miss the point when presented that way. ISTR that the original track is supposed to be similar.
- IMO the version of Born in the USA found on “The River” IS a patiotic anthem to the American spirit musically and lyrically in the same way that folksingers like Woody Guthrie mixed a love of the land with a basic distrust of government. Conventional wisdom these days sees the Vietnam veterans as the true patriots and the Nixon administration as the enemy. The Reagan administration’s adoption of the tune was a thinly disguised attempt to relate to the common man and distance itself from the “Washington insiders”, kind of like when you see teachers/chapperones at the high school dance trying to mix it up with the kids.
I concur here. I’ve seen him perform “Born in the USA” several times over the past decade, and no one is going to mistake the solo version he performs with John Phillip Souza, and you won’t hear any politicians adopting it as a campaign song…
1.) I dunno.
2.) It’s about returning Vietnam vets and their struggle to make it in society following the war. IMHO it IS supposed to be ironic, as in, “I was born in the USA, the greatest country in the world, and I go off to fight for my country, and when I come back I get treated like crap.” To me, the refrain especially sounds almost like a taunting - “I was BOOOOOOOORN in the USA!”, you can almost see the sneer on his face. I agree with others also, I saw him last year from the 11th row and he sang it completely different than the popular version, far more somber. Here’s the lyrics (I left out most of the refrains)
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…
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…
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’m a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
- I agree with you all about the somber, blues version (also on his recent box-set, Tracks). But the question that keeps haunting me is “why” the upbeat version? Was it a sellout to Columbia? Or maybe did he honestly think that people were going to be able to see through the music so easily (when, it seems, very many did not)? I certainly agree with the Guthrie point “This Land Is Your Land”, etc., and of course Springsteen was influenced a lot by Dylan/Guthrie. Just struggling (as I listed to it about 3 more times while in the car today) to figure out why he put it in that (up-tempo) package, which most of you seem to agree is not quite the right fit.