For Criminal and Countryman: Bruce Springsteen’s Bleak Americana
Upon first inspection, Bruce Springsteen is the quintessential American rock star. Handsome, energetic, and beaming with hope, but with an underlying middle-class humanity that makes his larger-than-life shows seem intimate, Springsteen is a piece of modern Americana. His music receives round-the-clock airplay on radio stations nationwide. In 2016, Bruce Springsteen received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama for his lifetime of work. President Obama, a noted Springsteen fan, said, “With empathy and honesty, he holds up a mirror as to who we are, as Americans chasing our dreams, and as human beings trying to do the right thing. There’s a place for everyone in Bruce Springsteen’s America.”
When Obama said that, he validated the message that constantly echos through Springsteen’s music. As much as Springsteen writes about girls on the boardwalk and fast cars, his music also serves as a platform for the pariahs of American society. Like other classic American singer-songwriters, Springsteen uses his music to explore tragedy in American life, imbuing his songs with a darkly humorous humanity. Following in the tradition of country songwriters who wrote fables about love, criminality, and honor, Springsteen’s songs are tall tales about betrayal, obsession, and despair. Through his songs, Springsteen has defined an altogether different type of American story, one that weaves tragedy, comedy, and the humdrum minutiae of daily life in equal parts.
His enduring popularity has made his songs a constant in American culture, even when the content of the song goes against the vibe of the crowd. “Born in the USA”, one of Springsteen’s most iconic songs, is an infamous example of Springsteen’s focus on the injustices of the time, chronicling a young man’s life before, during, and after the Vietnam War. There are few souls who haven’t heard the song so I’ll spare the rod
“ Born down in a dead man’s town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground”Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says, “Son if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said, “Son, don’t you understand”Born in the U.S.A
I was born in the U.S.A. now
Born in the U.S.A
I’m a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A. now
Underneath its poppy veneer was a bitter song about the ironic reality of American life, the idea that you would give your life for a country that wouldn’t care about you in return. It rejected the resurgence of manufactured patriotism that Reagan and the Republicans cynically deployed. There was no shining city on the hill for Springsteen, just the hellfire spewing refineries and block-long unemployment lines of his New Jersey haunts.
Having missed the irony, the Reagan reelection campaign would attempt to use the song in 1984, its energy seemingly making it an ideal fit for the Reagan campaign. When they were denied the rights, Reagan opted instead to make a reference to the song in a speech, which was quickly rebuked by Springsteen. In John Dolan’s book, Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock and Roll, Springsteen addresses the controversy; “Well, the president was mentioning my name in his speech the other day, and I kind of got to wondering what his favorite album of mine must’ve been, you know? I don’t think it was the Nebraska album, I don’t think he’s been to listening to this one.”
This kind of backlash from Springsteen is hardly surprising. Springsteen talks about the middle and working class often, but what is most striking is his sympathy for American lowlifes, misfits, and victims of circumstance. Many of the people in these songs are those whose lives have become so tangled in their own anger, cowardice, or bad luck that it threatens to destroy them.
Springsteen doesn’t reserve his humanizing touch solely for those struck by systemic failure. He also sings about men who have been condemned by society for real crimes. This is the case with the title track of Nebraska, a song about spree-killer Charles Starkweather. As the opening track to the album, it sets the mood as empty, almost nihilistic. The song is narrated from Starkweather’s point of view and recounts his murder spree and his trial. When asked if he feels remorse, he responds,
I can’t say I’m sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while, sir
Me and her had some fun.
The song offers no defense for Starkweather, instead giving us ample reason to be disgusted by him. Despite this evident disgust, Springsteen injects some humanity into the murderer
Sheriff, when the man pulls that switch, sir
And snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin’ right there on my lap.
This is a reference to Starkweather’s girlfriend and accomplice, Caril Ann Fugate, who was also tried for first-degree murder. By making Starkweather the narrator of the song, Springsteen has the request take on a different tone. Here, it is Starkweather’s only request, the one thing he cares about in the world. The song closes with the lines,
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.
A howling harmonica blows Starkweather’s crimes away to the High Plains like a drifting tumbleweed. For a song about an unrepentant murderer, there seems to be a quiet, absurd regret in those final lines. Starkweather didn’t kill those people for any reason, he was just a mean guy. But what are we to make of his love for Caril Ann? How inhuman and unfeeling was Starkweather truly?
Springsteen also has genuine empathy for those struck by systemic failure. “Johnny 99”, off 1982’s Nebraska, is the sordid tale of Ralph, an auto plant worker who is laid off and accidentally kills a cashier after bungling a robbery. The pressure stacks throughout as Springsteen’s playing get more intense. The fourth and fifth verses are his final remarks after being sentenced,
Now judge, I had debts no honest man could pay
The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and they were going to take my house away
Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m an innocent man
But it was more than all this that put this gun in my hand.
As the guitar plays out, a harmonica picks up and plays the song out. The lonesome harmonica makes the feeling of despair linger in the air, the narrator’s statement hangs in the song’s stale air. Ralph makes his case as a victim of circumstance, and the listener is the jury.
In spite of his crime, the character of Ralph is made deeply sympathetic through his situation and his solemnity. Working-class jobs, like those at Ralph’s auto plant, were disappearing overnight in the 1980s as foreign competitors moved into the American auto market and American manufacturers abandoned the cities and towns that made them millions to save on manufacturing costs. These events left many working-class Americans without jobs, money, or a roof over their heads. Ralph is one of these Americans. A dead man walking in a country that no longer wants nor needs him. The harmonica at the end serves as a glib postscript to the oppressive guitar work that precedes it. Its wistfulness suggests that this isn’t the first time it’s happened and it won’t be the last. Ralph’s crime may be violent, but it is not the cause, but rather a tragic symptom of the decay brought about by the exodus of manufacturing and industry.
Through his songs about the cheats, criminals, and castaways of American society, Springsteen follows in the songwriting tradition of his idols, most notably, Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash fashioned himself and his music after outlaws. His signature song, “Folsom Prison Blues,” follows a similarly, albeit less sympathetically, compromised protagonist; about his crime he famously sings,
“When I was just a baby my mama told me son
Always be a good boy don’t ever play with guns
But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him dieWhen I hear that whistle blowin’
I hang my head and I cry.
But Folsom’s loneliest resident would be far from the only killer Cash would sing about.
The song “Cocaine Blues” casts Cash in the role of another killer, this one guilty of murdering his wife in a cocaine fueled rage. Its appearance on Cash’s At Folsom Prison is an upbeat rockabilly number. Every verse is delivered with a punchy energy that makes his situation seem less dire, and more of an inconvenience.
Early one morning while making the rounds
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down
I went right home and I went to bed
I stuck that loving 44 beneath my head“Yes, oh yes, my name is Willy Lee
If you’ve got the warrant just a-read it to me
Shot her down because she made me slow
I thought I was her daddy but she had five more.”Come on, you’ve got to listen unto me
Lay off that whisky, and let that cocaine be
It’s a rocking song about addiction, jealousy, and murder, and it treats its subject more like a carnival sideshow than a cold-blooded killer. In the live version, the reveal that the girlfriend had five paramours elicits hoots and hollers from the prison audience. Cash’s confident, cocky delivery helps project a type of detached amusement that makes his character seem affable, if not particularly redeemable.
Springsteen’s good humor towards crime and tragedy would rear its head in one of Springsteen’s most upbeat songs, “Working on the Highway.” Originally written for Nebraska, but later moved to Born in the USA, “Working on the Highway” is a catchy, fast-paced track about a regular dude looking for love, who just happens to go to prison for abducting a teenage girl and transporting her across state lines.
As in “Cocaine Blues”, Springsteen tells the story as it happened, warts and all, but his confident, excited-to-be-alive delivery, combined with the powerful synths and cheery vibe help to conceal the darkness of the narrator’s actions. For what it’s worth, the narrator seems to be oblivious to his wrongdoings. He visits the girl’s father before he runs away and the exchange
I went to see her daddy
but we didn’t have much to say
“Son, can’t you see she’s just a little girl?
She don’t know nothing about this cruel, cruel world.”
Lines like this suggest that maybe the narrator simply doesn’t get all the commotion about his “relationship.” Either way, the song ends with her brothers finding the narrator, and getting him sent to prison, where he’s back doing what he’s doing on the outside, working on the highway.
Outside of the album’s titular track, this song may have benefited the most from being moved from Nebraska to Born in the USA. Had the song been recorded on the acoustic, lo-fi Nebraska, the lyrics would have taken a much darker tone. However, with Born in the USA’s glossy synths and studio production values, the song manages to turn itself from seedy and reprehensible to sleazy and fun. It takes a fringe member of American society and turns his story into a bouncy, arena-ready hit.
This song depicts an all too common type of relationship that if not explicitly celebrated, is passively accepted in American media. One only needs to think back on Roy Moore’s failed Senate run and how his numerous defenders dismissed his pedophilia on the account of “well, that’s just how things were back in the day.” This song doesn’t approve of the exploitation of minors, quite the opposite, but it is wryly aware that it happens, and it casts a spotlight on that grotesque behavior while also making it more digestible through its twisted sense of humor and storytelling.
President Obama’s quote about Springsteen’s music — “There’s a place for everyone in Bruce Springsteen’s America” — is one of the most apt explanations for the universality of Springsteen’s music. His music receives praise for its pro-working class message, its depictions of teenage longing, and wary patriotism, but Springsteen doesn’t just write about the working man, the lonely teenager, or the weary veteran, he writes about all Americans, including those we’ve chosen to ignore. Bruce Springsteen loves the United States of America, but is more than aware of our violent, complicated, ethically dubious history. Murderers, pedophiles, and burnouts may not be the most ideal parts of our history, but are an intrinsic part of Springsteen’s American experience all the same. It wouldn’t be America without the blemishes, and Springsteen wants us to learn the story behind every one of those blemishes. He captures the American spirit in a different way from both his influences and his contemporaries, and has created a uniquely sympathetic, affirming voice that is singularly his.
*This essay is a revised version of the 2017 essay “Springsteen: In the American Tradition”
