Springsteen: Hindsight: 20 / 20 Vision

Springsteen: Hindsight: 20 / 20 Vision
By Chris Bogart

In the summer of ’81, I received a phone call from a 19 year old girl in West Virginia. She was calling from the factory she had worked at since she dropped out of high school. I was sitting in my cubicle office at the YMCA in Asbury Park. I could hardly hear her voice; the noise of the heavy machinery in the background and the timid hazy quality of her voice forced me, on occasion, to ask her to speak a little louder. In fact, I could hear the operator far more clearly as she punctuated the conversation with requests for more coins to continue the call.

She had called, she said, just to talk to me. She had no money to buy the concert tee shirts that Bruce Springsteen had donated through WNEW-FM Radio in order to raise money for the strickened Asbury Park “Y”. But the newspapers in West Virginia had said that I had spoken with Bruce at the Meadowlands Arena, after one of the nights of his concert. “What is he like?” she asked me. I tried to relate some of what that conversation was like; and she hung on every word. She finally said she called because she had told her friend at the factory how great she thought Springsteen was; but, because his records were not very available, she felt as if her dedication to the singer and his songs was a lone crusade. After the news of his donation to the Asbury Park “Y” was published, she felt the exultation of vindication. That’s all she wanted to tell me. That, and how lucky I was to have met him. She thanked me for listening to her and hung up.

I have spent considerable time in the last few weeks, reading the reviews of Springsteen’s new and long-awaited album, Born in the U.S.A. There seems to be an almost childish obsession in these reviews with externals, and an almost total lack of concern with the value of the album itself. So, let me dispel any illusions and address all these externals quickly. No, nobody in NJ considers Bruce Springsteen a “god”, just a very effective songwriter (if “just” is the proper word to use). After all, New Jersey isn’t Mars. Not by a long shot. In many ways, it is very representative of areas and subcultures that predominate throughout the nation. And no, Born in the U.S.A. is not about NJ. To slip a hint, I refer one to the large mass of red, white and blue on the album cover behind his behind (or whoever’s it is).

As a matter of fact, one of the many strengths of this album is that it is not really regional at all. Born in the U.S.A begins with the title song as an all inclusive statement about a character that gets in a little trouble in his hometown, enlists in the army and goes to Vietnam. It is upon his return that this album really begins. Throughout all of the ensuing songs, Springsteen takes up through a myriad of places and experiences. Each of these songs has its own distinct style, and yet retains the unique quality that separates Springsteen from other singer/songwriters.

To describe this uniqueness, one has to examine a number of elements that has made Bruce Springsteen an elusive commodity to pin a title to. He has been called a phenomenon; and that is what I believe he is. Many reviewers have referred to his ability to side step one of the cardinal rules of the music industry: loosely translated to “publish or perish.” No one takes three years away from the public to produce a new album. Nobody dare. He does.

Many performers are remarkably adept at expressing one particular aspect of life in the U.S.A. This ability becomes their triumph – it also becomes their trap. Yet, the characters in Springsteen’s lyrics find the ability to feel the constriction, but have the ability to escape the trap. It is this unorthodox combination of “fight” and “flight” that has made songs like Thunder Road, Born to Run, and now Born in the U.S.A. poignant yet exhilarating.

The construction of this album is, in fact, like an inverted pyramid or a funnel. From the universal condition described in Born in the U.S.A to the retrospective feeling expressed, as the character, now 35 instructs his son in the lesson he learned, in My Hometown, the listener is led on a journey from the general to the particular. The album begins with a song that has all of the “gut” feeling and sound of the best of Springsteen’s music; and ends with a quiet, subtle ballad of experience and home, similar to his work in last year’s solo album Nebraska.

Don’t look for lyrics with big words that are pregnant with meaning; the lyrics in this album are admittedly simply. They are spoken by the common man. And it is the plight of the common man that Springsteen excels. His albums are populated with characters that, while never deeply defined, are real only as they pass before our eyes. For example, we know that he and “Wayne” drove down to Darlington County because of a “union connection” of an uncle of Wayne’s. We can presume that they both were looking for work. But who is Wayne? For the songwriter gives us just as much as we have to know about Wayne to give us the intimacy of the situation, without involving us to distraction. In this respect, Wayne joins the Magic Rat of Jungleland and others that Springsteen has developed to populate his (and our) world.

However, there are flaws in the world he creates. And one of those flaws is his characterizations of women. While very representative of prevailing perceptions of a large grouping of people, particularly those who live well outside the major urban centers of this country, they are far from flattering, somewhat archaic and submissive elements all but gone from today’s perception. Yet, my phone friend from West Virginia might fit this image to a tee.

If Springsteen has become a phenomenon, he has achieved that status by producing a number of exceptional albums. He is one of the few rock artists that can claim the ability to pack large local arenas as well as other halls throughout the country. And anyone who has been a part of those audiences can attest to the gentle control he has over his audiences, and devotion of his fans. Yes, devotion – not deification! Far from being a man hooked on his own hype, he possesses a remarkable amount of energy and exuberance for his music, and a quiet concern for any who have crossed his way, from the immense setting of the Meadowlands Arena to the intimate atmosphere of a Jersey Shore cabaret.

And that is what I told the 19 year old girl from West Virginia.

Ed. Note: The author, former Director of Planning of the Asbury Park YMCA, writes from New Jersey, of course!


Published in Back Stage Pass, Volume 2, Issue no. 12 (July ’84)