Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A.

This page is about music, certainly not politics. But then, sometimes, music touches on politics and there’s no getting around scraping the issue.

Not that I believe all I hear on the news, but this sounds just wrong enough to be true: Donald Trump is playing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” at his rallies as a swipe at his co-contender Ted Cruz. … What’s wrong with this picture? Anybody? Anything?

 

To me, the song is anything but glorious or patriotic.
To me, it’s an anti-war song expressing the disillusionment of a Vietnam veteran who ends up unemployable for doing the right thing. “Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go” spells the hopelessness that came with having been “Born in the U.S.A.” It speaks to the genius of Bruce Springsteen that the lyrics still resonate – more than 30 years after the album/song was released.

 

Wikipedia accounts:

In Springsteen’s own words, the song "Born in the U.S.A." is about "a working-class man" [in the midst of a] "spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost...It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his family...to the point where nothing makes sense." Springsteen promotes the fact that the endless search for truth is the true American way.

Perhaps the original version may be mistaken for patriotic – it seems that the band makes it hard to follow the lyrics at times. Perhaps that’s why I prefer the acoustic version which you find on the 18 Tracks album … or in this YouTube video ...

Born in the U.S.A.
Bruce Springsteen

Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
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., I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A., 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., I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.

Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said "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 was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., I'm a long gone daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., I'm a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A