‘Son, take a good look around…’
My dad passed away in November of 2018. I’ve been trying to think of a way to honour his memory that would have a bit of permeance – something that I could tangibly create that I could then return to in later years. I settled on For Pete’s Sake – a YouTube series in which I go through my dad’s record collection and review them one record at a time. To accompany those videos, I will also be writing a written review of each album. This will give me a bit more room to explore the records themselves in greater detail on a musical level. The videos will be more dad-centric, while these reviews will focus more on the music. This week, it was the turn of Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 record, Born in the U.S.A…
As the ’70s turned into the ’80s, Bruce Springsteen found himself at a crossroads. The River, his sixth studio album, had been a smash hit, but he’d followed this up with Nebraska – a brooding, introspective record that had no obvious hits and no sign of the E Street Band (The Boss had intended the songs to be played with a full band, but he ended up releasing the demos instead). Heavily influenced by the experiences of American soldiers in Vietnam, Springsteen rented a ranch in Colts Neck, New Jersey, and started working on the songs that would eventually make up Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A.
I think my problem with this album is that people who don’t like Springsteen, don’t like him because of the three biggest singles from this record. The title track, ‘Glory Days’ and ‘Dancing in the Dark’ were all monster hits, but they really aren’t indicative of the rest of Springsteen’s output. It doesn’t help that both the title track and ‘Glory Days’ have both been misunderstood in the years since their release. While I have made my peace with all three of those songs (I didn’t like them for years), we must dig deeper into this record to find the real gems.
‘I’m on Fire’ was also a single on the album, but it deserves to be more beloved than it is. It’s probably The Boss’s most sensual song, and it’s also the one that has aged the best on this record. The slinky synth line combined with the Springsteen’s tortured howl is truly passionate, and it’s no surprise that it has become a live favourite. ‘No Surrender’ starts with the wonderful lines, ‘Well, we busted out of class/Had to get away from those fools/We learned more from a three-minute record, baby/Than we ever learned in school’. It’s typical Springsteen in that its both profound and incredibly simple all at once. It’s another overlooked track. Lastly, I’m a sucker for sentiment, and ‘My Hometown’ lays it on thick. The Boss always had a complicated relationship with his own father, and he works out some of those feelings here. Some may find it mawkish and insincere, straying into Bon Jovi territory even, but if you take the song at face value (as I always have), it’s incredibly affecting.
I think for hardcore Springsteen fans, Born in the U.S.A. is nobody’s favourite album. And yet, it’s his most successful and one of the most important in terms of where he subsequently went as an artist following that success. Without Born in the U.S.A., there is no Tunnel of Love – an album that saw the boss turn inward, both lyrically and musically. Everything changed with this record.