“Downbound Train”: What Bruce Springsteen Understood About the Trump Voter in 1984
With all attention recently directed at the President’s antics, it may be worth refocusing some analysis on those who put him in office. If 2016 has reminded us anything, it is that they matter.
I was informed by my girlfriend’s mother — who has seen Bruce Springsteen nearly seventy times in concert — that I can officially start calling myself a fan now that I’ve finished his new memoir. I now “get it.” Even for non-Springsteen fans, Born to Run is a rewarding read, documenting the rocker’s rise from a humble working-class family to arena-filled superstardom, from his larger-than-life antics to his bouts with depression. Springsteen effectively turns his songwriting into moving prose — so authentically, in fact, I have no doubt it was actually he who wrote it.
The Economist named Bruce’s memoir one of its 2016 books of the year, calling it “[a] timely autobiography of the bard of American deindustrialization, whose songs recognize and honor blue-collar woes. His stories have never aged; years after they were written they remain a lesson in empathy for the white-collar fans he has always attracted.”
This review rattled in my head for weeks; it was spot on. Is Springsteen some sort of rock-saxophone-loving bridge? Living in D.C., there are a large number of proclaimed Springsteen fans. Many of them are liberal, as is the Boss, and most of them are deeply removed from the world of the blue-collar worker. Admittedly, this may just be a reflection of my own bubble; I know and love many people who will never wear a suit to work, but none of them live in Washington.
Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen was writing about the Trump voter in 1984. While reading his memoir I found myself listening to Bruce almost exclusively, and that, of course, included his classic Born in the USA album. One song in particular struck me as exemplifying whatever it was the Economist was getting at. Debby Bull of Rolling Stone called “Downbound Train” “the saddest song [Springsteen]’s ever written,” and even though it was not one of the seven singles released from the album, Bruce biographer Robert Kirkpatrick has contended it’s USA’s best.
If you haven’t already, give it a listen. The song starts with a fantastic, Keith Richardsesque riff, and then straight into a gut-punch:
I had a job, I had a girl
I had something going, mister, in this world
I got laid off down at the lumber yard
Our love went bad, times got hard
Now I work down at the car wash
Where all it ever does is rain
Don’t you feel like you’re a rider on a downbound train
A room full of speechwriters, economists, and politicians could not have more clearly described the working class anxiety we are seeing today than Bruce did in this first verse. There’s a man who lost his job, his love, his masculinity, his purpose. He’s underemployed, broke, blue.
There are many thousands of Joes out there today; people who knew nothing more surely than who they were and what they did. When those things were taken away from them, the Joes don’t have a college psychology or philosophy class to use in reflecting upon what they feel; they just have the hurt.
They may not be the most disparaged in society, they may not have the least opportunity, but they are nonetheless lost. That would frighten anyone. Irreversible trends in automation, trade, industry, and technology have left many Joes and Janes behind. They are worried what the future holds for their children. Worry turns to anxiety, and anxiety bubbles into anger.
I sent “Downbound Train” to several of my D.C. friends. If we want things to get better, the first step is empathy. But empathy is never an easy thing, especially towards those whom we are never exposed. If he is who I am picturing, Downbound Train Joe probably knows nothing about being bullied because of his religion, his color, or his sexual identity. And you know what — he should do better. At the same time, however, there are many who would condemn Joe that in turn know nothing about his life, his hurt - D.C. is rife with them.
Across the country we are seeing a great divide, not just ideologically, but geographically. People are in waves moving closer to those who talk, think, dress, love, pray, and vote like them. They call this phenomena the “Big Sort.” This, alongside media that allows us to ignore opposition and reinforce our own political predispositions, makes cross-culture empathy a lot harder.
There are no clear fixes to this problem; if there were, they would have been done already. At some point, we forgot how to talk to one another. We could all use, as the Economist put it, a few “lessons in empathy.”
To start, at least, there’s always Bruce.
