Born in the U.S.A.: When the president met the Boss

Mon, 28 May 2012 18:00:00 +0000

In the same week that "The River" hit No. 1, in a seemingly unrelated event, Gov. Ronald Reagan of California was elected the 40th president of the United States, garnering a whopping 489 Electoral College votes, while incumbent Jimmy Carter received a mere 49. During the last days of the campaign, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band were on tour, of course, still promoting the month-old "River," but they had election night off. The next night, on November 5, they played a concert at Arizona State University in Tempe that was virtually identical to the one they had played in Los Angeles the previous Thursday — except that it was longer. "All you guys in the aisle find your seats, OK?" Bruce announced three songs in. "There’s gonna be a real long show."

That night Springsteen rambled, more than usual. Before the postindustrial triptych of “Independence Day,” “Factory” and “Jackson Cage” midway through the first set, he began a long monologue, although not about his father, whom he frequently talked about before “Factory.” Instead, Springsteen used this opportunity to talk about his love of pop music, about what it had meant to him growing up. Spontaneously, falteringly, he offered the most coherent argument he would ever make for the essential unity of the two distinct compositional strains that had flowed into "The River," its idealistic and pessimistic “hearts”:

Springsteen in the age of Occupy

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Bruce Springsteen is 62, a little old for a pop star but a good age for a presidential candidate. He was born in the late 1940s, a child of the very first years of the baby boom, as were both Mitt Romney (who is two years older than him) and Rick Perry (who is one year younger). A number of times over the years, semi-sincere New Jersey fans have threatened to draft Springsteen as a candidate for the U. S. Senate, but the singer has wisely demurred. Nevertheless, he is widely viewed as one of the most politically active U.S. pop stars of his generation, and an especially vivid presence during presidential election years.

It is hard to remember it now, but in the beginning of his career Springsteen was largely apolitical. During his first decade and a half as a professional musician, he made almost no political endorsements or even statements from the stage. In November of 1980, he told an audience at Arizona State University that the election of Ronald Reagan “frightened” him, but he didn’t specify just what he was afraid of. In September of 1984, Reagan’s reelection team, looking for local references to liven up a campaign stop in Hammonton, N.J., had Reagan name-check Springsteen in that day’s variation on the president’s standard stump speech. When informed of this, Springsteen tried to shrug off the association and distance himself from Reagan, but there were certain vague similarities. More than anything, Springsteen and Reagan both often saw life in the United States as the same essential conflict: a war between individuals with dreams and the larger institutions that sought to keep them down.

Salon.com > Marc Dolan

Born in the U.S.A.: When the president met the Boss

Springsteen in the age of Occupy