"Born in the USA" - your thoughts on the tune?

[HEyHEY]

I've always thought it was a bit of a reality check kinda tune, but in a patriotic way.

[ogneopasno]

1. Very much so. The fact that right-wingers try to claim it as their own always cracks me up.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

4. They only claim the chorus.

They can't process more than 5 or 6 words at a time.

[blogslut]

2. The first stanza is some of the finest poetry in popular music

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 a covering up

Born in the USA
I was
Born in the USA
I was
Born in the USA
I was
Born in the USA

[rug]

3. Better tune than "March of the Volunteers".

[Richardo]

5. I don't know if I've ever heard the song start-to-finish.

Not a political choice, I just don't like Springsteen that much.

I certainly don't know the lyrics - although I understand that the chorus is more ironic in tone than the RWers can understand.

[reggie the dog]

9. the song is about being born working class

being obliged to go to Vietnam, and coming back only to find out that there is no job for you.

10 years buring down the road
still got nowhere to run, got nowhere to go

I am a big fan of Springsteen, I usually listend to metal but he is to working people what John Cougar is to farmers. the disk Born in the USA is up their with Mellancamps Blood on the Scarcrow disk as far as social statements go. Check out springsteens song My Hometown about delocalization of factories, and Mellencamps song Rain on the Scarcrow about losing family farms. Excellent artists in my opinion, and they fight for the little folks.

[tigereye]

42. ya know, it's easier to hear the words when someone does a cover

it's a very good song. Sometimes covers of iconic songs really come across when they aren't done by famous singers...

[Left Is Write]

6. One of my favorite songs ever.

[bbernardini]

7. Its two chords are very good.

:)

[swag]

8. Always liked this version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhNQhl6qUQ

[Bennyboy]

10. BRRUUUUUUCCE!

Great song, great album ad the tour was great. Saw both legs of the tour, one in the collesium and then in the stadium. The last time Bruce was his really playful self with the stories, the costumes and skits.

[MilesColtrane]

11. Good lyrics

Monodynamic, repetitive music

[no name no slogan]

14. It's two chords: B and E

which is probably why it works so well-- it doesn't distract from the lyrics.

[MilesColtrane]

16. I find the lack of harmonic and melodic movement distracting.

It's like trying to read a poem while somebody's subjecting you to Chinese Water Torture.

drip...drip...drip...

[BlueJazz]

17. Yep...I've never bought the "It's the meaning of the words, not the Music" line.

(As you know well) ..There are Great Lyrics that are also coupled with wonderful expressive chords and structure.

I see no reason why the public can't have and enjoy both.

I think it's a Cop-out. :)

[no name no slogan]

19. Sometimes all you need is two chords

Or sometimes, even one chord. Not every song has to have an overly complex melodic structure to be interesting. A lot of times, too much structure can be a bad thing. The trick is to keep it interesting using as little structure as possible.

Just look at Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things". Half of that piece is him blowing over a simple chord change. And it certainly never gets boring (at least, it hasn't for me in the 25 years since I first heard it as a teenager).

Some of the greatest pop songs every written have a very simplistic structure-- just an A and B part-- and oftentimes just an A part. You don't need excessive wankery to be good. Emerson Lake & Palmer are full-on wanktastic, but nobody'd ever mistake them for Lennon/McCartney.

[BlueJazz]

21. I certainly agree with what you say..but...like Coltrane's solo/ad-lib...

there has to be Something there to excite the brain.
Even the Sax Solo (second part) on FM (Steely Dan) is Wonderful despite being played over a simple E Major.
..And of course, the "The Crusaders" were masters at "Saying a lot with simple riffs" :)

I suppose my "Bitch" is WAY too many tunes (now-a-days) have decent words but seem to Water-Down every other part of the Performance.
I mean, why not try to make the Musicians happy AND the Public ??
...and what the hell happened to Solos ?

Yes..I dream..silly, foolish me...

[mix]

12. the punks got it

the song was clearly a savage take on being a working class American

[datasuspect]

13. "My Hometown" is better.

I was eight years old and running with a dime in my hand
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I'd sit on his lap in that big old Buick and steer as we drove through town
He'd tousle my hair and say son take a good look around this is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometown

In '65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights between the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night in the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed in a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
My hometown
My hometown
My hometown

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your
hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown

Last night me and Kate we laid in bed
talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I'm thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said son take a good look around, this is your hometown

[OmahaBlueDog]

18. I had a friend move to Phoenixville, PA during that time frame

At the center of town was a closed steel mill that had once made structural members for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Many downtown shops were closed and boarded. I always think of that song when I think about the closing of the PA steel towns in the 70s and 80s.

[HEyHEY]

23. I love that song too

Makes me think about the 80s. When the log booms stopped coming into the local mill and many people I knew lost their jobs.

[HopeHoops]

15. It blows like moose shit out of a souzaphone

:puke: :hurts: :nuke:



:hide: :popcorn:

[Zavulon]

20. At the risk of getting flamed, I think it sucks.

Boring music, boring lyrics, bad singer, sung in a way as if the song is somehow important or inspirational.

Admittedly, I'm not a Springsteen fan at all, but this song is almost as bad as Dancing in the Dark. Just awful.

[MilesColtrane]

24. Don't forget "Pink Cadillac".

That's another one on Hell's jukebox.

[Zavulon]

29. You are correct.

That song blows, as most of his songs do. I tend to like a lot of the guy's politics, but his music is the most overrated shit imaginable.

[blogslut]

35. nevermind

I was wrong.

[Iggo]

31. Dancing In The Dark is 17 times better. (n/t)

[Zavulon]

33. Seventeen times better than what?

I assume you mean "Born in the USA?" Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Personally, I hate both songs so much that to me, the choice is between two broken arms and two broken legs. If you actually like "Dancing in the Dark," please understand that no offense is intended, tastes vary. Mine just aren't geared towards any music Springsteen has ever produced.

[Iggo]

34. Can't stand either song.

But I do give Dancing In The Dark a couple of bonus points for actually being a song.

Born In The USA sounds like someone swinging a cat by the tail into a chain-link fence over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Not a fan. No.

[Zavulon]

38. Man, am I glad to meet you.

Right around Super Bowl time, I believe it was, I expressed my true feelings on Springsteen's "music" and was flamed like an Esskay red hot at Camden Yards. Nice to see I'm not the only one who feels this way. :hi:

[Iggo]

40. Charmed, I'm sure...lol.

I guess back when Springsteen was supposed to be the shit, I was listening to The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne...the kind of music I recently heard called "California Country" on some documentary on the Ovation(?) channel. I mean, yeah, Born To Run. Good song. But we had Bob Seger for that, know'm say'n? By the time Springsteen hit it mega-huge in the 80's, I had already moved on to and past Sabbath; through Priest, Scorps, Maiden, and the NWOBHM; all the way to Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax**. Springsteen was MTV pop by then. In fact, for a minute I though he was Rick Springfield. Now HIM I remembered from the 70's...lol.

**(Even those bands seem kinda cute to the Black, Death, and Doom Metal I listen to nowadays.)

Rock on. :headbang:

[latebloomer]

22. Love Bruce, and appreciate the sentiments expressed in the song

but can't say I care for the song itself too much.

He's written much better tunes.

[Broken_Hero]

25. It reminds me...of a dumbass movie

I can't remember the name, and I'm to lazy to go to imdb....

I think it has Sean Astin in it...at the end, where they are about ready to get blown outta the sky, the song kicks in, when I believe...Astin shows the Pilot a sign....:D

[Broken_Hero]

26. Well, it isn't Sean Astin in the movie I'm thinking of....

I'm on a hunt, to figure out what flick I'm thinkin on....:P

[nomorenomore08]

27. I like it, appreciate it, but Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" serves the same

purpose, and better IMO.

"We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man,
We got a kinder gentler
Machine gun hand

We got department stores and toilet paper,
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer,
Got a man of the people says keep hope alive,
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive..."

[Eurobabe]

28. Four words: BUY Working on a Dream

This is one of his most poetic and wonderful works yet. :hi:

[Odin2005]

30. BRUUUUCE IS DA BOOOOOOSS!!!

[krispos42]

32. Meh.

Never "got" Springsteen.

[qwertyMike]

36. Anyone got a pic of the Album Cover

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ttS4iiWVp4KNSM:http://vinylzart.com/images/AlbumCovers-BruceSpringsteen-BornintheU.S.A.(1984).jpg


My (punk band) 20 yr old son insists Springsteen is pissing on THE FLAG !!!!!!!!!!

[mwooldri]

37. If blaring out from a moped painted in American flag colours in Vietnam is anything to go by...

then it may be an insult.

Beats "Born in the USSR" I guess...

Mark.

[PassingFair]

39. They played it in a bar in London one night...

and everyone was singing "BORED IN THE USA".

I pretended to be Canadian, as usual.

:P

[jobycom]

41. Usually gets my blood pumping until a third of the way through the song

then I have to decide whether the bear it out or change the station. Great lyrics and message, but I've heard them enough, and the music generally bores me after a while.

The discussions upthread about two chords and such may explain why I react that way. I react that way to almost everything Springsteen does, though. If I'm in the mood for his lyrics, I like him, but he rarely holds my attention. He has a way of grabbing it at first, then doing nothing with it.

[tigereye]

43. I really think his early stuff is more complex and tells more involved stories -

he got a bit too anthemic when he became more famous in the 80s, I think. Like I said upthread, you really hear more of the words and intent of Born in the USA when someone else is singing it...


I'm kind of surprised his populism doesn't come through to some folks in this thread, though. He isn't Guthrie or Billy Bragg, but he really tends to stand up for working folks.

[jobycom]

44. I like his early stuff better, and I like his lyrics and material.

In the right mood, I like him. But I have to be paying enough attention to get into the lyrics. If he's just on in the car or at work while I'm concentrating on other things, I get bored with him, but if I'm at home just listening to music, I like it more. I can't describe it in musical terms, but his voice and music and meaning blend into a mood. If that makes sense. I have to feel the whole song to really get into him.