by In the world of rock and roll, true believers like Bruce Springsteen are practically a necessity.
Although many people can look at the flash of a band at the top of the charts and simply see a bunch of kids trying to have their 15 minutes of fame, ‘The Boss’ wanted to tell a story and find that one song that could always resonate with people across multiple generations.
He always wanted to reflect the world he grew up in, but as he grew older, a lot of his perspectives looked a lot different.
He had come a long way from Asbury Park in the late 1970s, but even when he became one of the biggest stars in the world, there was always that little bit of melancholy creeping its way back into every one of his songs. Born in the USA is a fantastic record, but part of its power comes from how bittersweet it is listening to the tracks, like the title tune’s critique of America or the loneliness of a song like ‘Downbound Train’.
It’s never a pure pick-me-up, but it’s never supposed to be. Springsteen never the best songs ever written were about acknowledging all the hardships that come with life, and even his more hopeful songs aren’t always about someone being purely happy. ‘The Rising’ might be one of the most positive tracks in his catalogue, but the reason why it works so well is because he knows how difficult it was for people to move on after something as horrific as 9/11.
Then again, it’s not like Springsteen couldn’t write purely positive songs, either. Human Touch and Lucky Town may have taken that a bit too seriously in some respects, but almost every tune on Born to Run is about that sense of escape. And while ‘Thunder Road’ and ‘Jungleland’ are basically twin songs about people trying to make a life for themselves better than what they were promised, the title track is still one of the most invigorating pieces of rock and roll ever conceived.
From a lyrical standpoint, ‘The Boss’ isn’t exactly painting the greatest picture of what life is like. He knows that the American dream that he’s searching for is going to be tough and might seem completely unattainable in many respects, but the fact that he and Wendy are running as fast as they can to chase it is the reason why people are determined to follow Springsteen to the ends of the Earth every time he plays the tune live.
And the magic of the track isn’t lost on Springsteen, either, going so far as to say that he would take the tune to his grave, saying, “Those are my lines. ‘Born to Run.’ That’s my epitaph, if you wanna know my epitaph. There it is. It still is, probably—I use the song at the end of the show every night as a summary. The idea is that it can contain all that has come before. And I believe that it does.”
Even though Springsteen probably had a very specific situation on his mind when writing that tune, the fact that it could apply to almost anyone is a testament to his writing. All those people in the crowd chanting every word along with him aren’t all cut from the same cloth, but they all know what it’s like to feel beaten down and know that they will do anything to make sure they chase after that sense of happiness the same way ‘The Boss’.
Because no matter how many times people think that the American dream is totally dead, Springsteen is living proof that there are people willing to fight the good fight for those who can’t do it themselves. All of the characters in his songs were misfits, and he would do anything to make sure that there was a musical home for people that didn’t have a place to call their own in mainstream society.
