Bruce Springsteen, "The Boss," went completely under my radar in the 1970s and 1980s. I knew "Blinded by the Light" (1973), but only through the 1977 cover by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, something about a teenage boy who "pumps his way into a hat" and is "wrapped up like a douche."The actual word is "deuce," but I have no idea what a deuce is. Something to do with card playing?
I knew "Born in the U.S.A." (1984), but I thought it was a jingoistic patriotic anthem, not an indictment of our treatment of Vietnam War veterans. How could you get that from:
Born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I'm a cool rockin' Daddy in the USA.
And I had a vague image of dead-end towns, pick-up trucks, hard-drinking men who worked in factories and the women who gave their lives meaning, gross heterosexist country-western stuff, nothing I would want to listen to.
There are lots of homophobic slurs in his songs.
In "Lost in the Flood" (1973), a returning Vietnam veteran moans that the countryside's burning with wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide.
Not a very positive depiction of the Gay Rights Movement.
"Backstreets" (1975) two friends grow up on the mean streets. One of their pastime is "ripping off the fags."
More recently, "Balboa Park" (1995) talks about hustling: Where the men in their Mercedes come nightly to employ the services of the border boys
No positive references to gay people, but "Streets of Philadelphia" (1993) which was used in the movie starring Tom Hanks as gay man dying of AIDS, can be about any gay person's struggle with a brutal, heartless, homophobic world .
Ain't no angel gonna greet me, it's just you and I my friend
And my clothes don't fit me no more. A thousand miles just to slip this skin
"Some things are more important than a rock show, and this fight against prejudice and bigotry is one of them."
Yeah, "Born in the USA" is a lot like "Tomorrow Belongs to Me": Poe's law in action.
ReplyDeleteNaked males please
ReplyDeleteyou made up the lyric to Backstreeets. Springsteen doesnt sing that.
ReplyDeleteThat's strange. There's a song called "Backstreets" on the 1975 Springsteen album "Born to Run," which Rolling Stone calls the "sixth greatest Sprignsteen song of all time." Are you saying that Springsteen stole it from someone else and put his name on it?
DeleteYou are right, it is his song. The lyrics just isn't that. You wrote "ripping off the fags." He just doesn't sing that. I can't say for certain but I'm not sure where you get that lyric from.
DeleteWhy would I make up something like that? I never heard of hte song before, but Springsteenlyrics.com has the line "ripping off the fags" lised as Studio Version #2: https://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics.php?song=backstreets_unofficial. You can also see it in " You can also find it in the Bruce Springsteen lyrics databae, http://www.brucespringsteen.it/DB/sd3.aspx?sid=45, and several other places that I'll enumerate in another post.
DeleteIn Born to Run he does sing about "wrap your legs around these engines"
ReplyDeleteI was a big Springsteen fan in the 1980s not so much now- he did write some great songs
ReplyDeleteWhat you’re missing is that Springsteen writes songs as narratives. The persona of a song’s narrator isn’t expressing Springsteen’s point of view; it’s a character, just as Bertolt Brecht’s “Three Penny Opera” is comprised of songs sung from different character’s perspectives. Springsteen created a universe of characters in his songs, often under-represented members of society. You point out the theme from the film Philadelphia. Springsteen sings it in the first person, but it is in the voice of a character struggling with loss, identity, fear and longing. Go back and listen to “Born in the USA” and hear it as the anger of a Vietnam veteran spitting out those words while struggling, not as a jingoistic rock track.
ReplyDeleteI think I mentioned that several of the songs have a non-Springsteen persona, but the personae can still avoid homophobic slurs, just like you can depict a racist character without using offensive racist slurs.
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