Bruce Springsteen: Born In The USA - 1984

"The title track more or less stood by itself. The rest of the album contains a group of songs about which I've always had some ambivalence" - Bruce Springsteen

This was the big one, the one that, unfortunately for those of us that still viewed Springsteen as a "cult" artist, saw his albums sitting in the record collections of those whose only other albums were Thriller, Brother In Arms and Face Values. This horrified me. This was when Bruce Springsteen was taken from me and given to the masses. For this reason I have never had much time for this album. Somewhat unfair, I know. 

Even now, looking back on it, it is certainly no classic, by any means. It is simply twelve radio friendly rock songs of varying potency and quality. It is not the glory of Born To Run, the streetwise romance of The Wild, The Innocent & The E St Shuffle, the angry hopelessness of Darkness On The Edge Of Town or most certainly not the haunting melancholy of  Nebraska, by any stretch of the imagination. Not at all. For many, however, this was their first introduction to the wonderful artist that is Bruce Springsteen, and therefore it has a real emotional meaning for them. I understand that completely. For me, though, I was seven years down the line and viewed its appearance and almighty success somewhat differently. Just a personal thing. Yes, some of the tracks did it for me, but many of them, if I was honest, were a bit underwhelming. There was nothing remotely like Badlands, Jungleland, Incident On 57th Street or Racing In The Street on here. Compare those gargantuan tracks with the somewhat banal ordinariness of Cover Me or, for me, the pop fluff of Dancing In The Dark - the difference is seismic. 

Another important point became obvious many years later, upon the release of the Tracks box set in 1998. I realised then just how much quality material Springsteen had left off this album. Like Dylan, Springsteen made some positively awful choices when it came to track selection. For example, This Hard Land or Brothers Under The Bridges didn't make it, yet Cover Me and I'm Going Down did. After the acoustic bleakness of Nebraska, Springsteen brought the E St. Band back to provide a full on backing, and a much fuller, richer one than the tinny sound of The River. 

We're born down in a dead man's town.....

This is unashamedly a commercial, rock album, led off by the bombastic, anthemic, but often totally misunderstood Born In The USA - the bottleneck blues original would have put the point over far more convincingly and with no ambiguity. However, there is no doubting the sheer power of the sorry tale of a Vietnam veteran and something that often not noted is Roy Bittan's slight South-East Asian inflections of the accompanying piano. A lot of people try make something out of the fact that a young Springsteen wilfully dodged the draft, trying to make out that he is some sort of hypocrite singing about the plight of the vets. Bollocks. Anyone with half a brain would have dodged the draft. I know I would.

Cover Me is a thoroughly unremarkable song, to be honest, that seems to go on far long than its three and a half minutes. I can take it or leave it. As rockers go, Darlington County is far more to my taste - hooky, saxophone-enhanced, cowbell riff-driven and telling a bit of a hopeless tale under its fun, all off to the county fair veneer. 

Springsteen always liked a rockabilly throwback and we get one here on an upbeat, rumbling bass-backed serving of energy, Working On the Highway. The lyrics contain references to protective brothers, prison and chain gangs which suit it perfectly. 

Downbound Train is the album's one real link to the bleakness of Darkness On The Edge Of Town, parts of The River or Nebraska is this one. It has a dark message to it, worthy, particularly, of the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album. It is probably the album's most sombre track and stands alone from the good-time rock of much of the rest of it, with its lyrics about losing a job and a girl and getting "laid off down at the lumber yard". While No Surrender is my favourite, this is probably the album's standout track in terms of Springsteen credibility, with the familiar honest working man character who "had a job, had a girl..." now finding himself metaphorically on that downbound train to no future, staring off into space. 

I'm On Fire is another of those Springsteen fan favourites that doesn't really do it for me, despite its hauntingly catchy, minimalist melody. To be honest, I have always found it a bit creepy, with its strange line "Hey little girl is your daddy home, did he go away and leave you all alone...". Yes, the song is about pent-up sexual desire and its accompanying video showed a different scenario to that the lyrics convey, as Bruce sniffs around a mature woman. The song has always seemed a bit odd to me. Incidentally, some of the lyrics were used in a much better earlier song called Spanish Eyes. If you notice the sleeve here, you will see that even Bruce was now releasing 12" singles! Whatever next? The Born In The USA 12" mix sounds dreadful!

Anyway, back to proper rock - now for No Surrender . This rousing drum and guitar barnstormer of a track has always been my favourite. I remember buying the album upon release and this was the first track I played. It was one of those "wow" moments. The song has some fine riffs and a strong, hooky chorus - rocking Bruce at his best, once more. It knocks spots off songs like Cover Me, doesn't it? Yes it does. 

Bobby Jean is another favourite of mine - a lively piece of rocking nostalgia for times gone by, childhood and carefree youth, and a recognition that things have to move on. It has a great Clarence Clemons sax solo too. Great stuff. 

I'm Goin' Down is better than Cover Me but otherwise nothing there to make me say to someone "listen to this" (as I did with No Surrender). The "down, down, down" chorus is a bit irritating as well. 

With Glory Days we get more thirty-something retrospective musing about getting old, something Springsteen loved to do in this album. A somewhat embarrassing lament for days gone by that were probably never as glorious as the protagonist makes them sound (admittedly, that is the whole point of the song), it is a suitably and gloriously catchy, singalong number with some fine characterisation but, guess what? You got it - it's a fan favourite that doesn't particularly float my boat. 

Ha ha ha! Here's another one! Dancing In The Dark. I like this even less than Glory Days. I remember trying to convince my new girlfriend at the time in 1984 that Springsteen was a genius and his songs carried such emotion and meaning. Intrigued, her ears pricked up when she heard this on the radio a few days later and she said that try as she might, she just couldn't hear what I was talking about. I have to say I know what she meant. Anyway, the song is poppy and easy to sing to at a live show but it's too synthy for me. It's just not what Bruce is, to me, at least. I didn't go for the single cover pic of Bruce jumping up in the air in carefree fashion either. I expected him to be more brooding and serious, like on the front of the Darkness album. 

With My Hometown, the album ends on a sombre note with this meaningful slow number about growing up, having a family and social unrest issues. It is, with Downbound Train, the album's most hard-hitting and bleak song. As often with Bruce, though, there's always a bit of redemption at the end as the narrator drives his own son around and  tells him "son, take a good look around - this is your hometown", just as his own father had done with him..

I have to reiterate (at the risk of repeating myself) that this is nowhere near the album that Darkness On The Edge Of Town is, absolutely nowhere near. For many, though, this is his best album, so who am I to disagree? 

Maybe the last word on it should go to Springsteen himself, who has expressed some mixed feelings about the album, feeling that Nebraska contained some of his strongest songwriting, while this album did not necessarily follow suit.

"...The title track more or less stood by itself. The rest of the album contains a group of songs about which I've always had some ambivalence." 

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Take a look at the tracks that were rejected from the album's sessions a consider what the album may have sounded like - three copper-bottomed classics in the atmospheric This Hard Land, the lengthy, melodramatic Frankie and the typical E. St rock of Brothers Under The Bridges '83; some mid-pace, melodic numbers in Lion's Den, Car Wash, Man At The Top and Rockaway The Days; some solid rock in My Love Will Not Let You Down, Cynthia, the witty, self-deprecating TV Movie, the rollicking Stand On It, a couple of excellent 'b' sides in the bluesy grind of Pink Cadillac and the catchy rock of Janey Don't You Lose Heart. In fact, that lot would make up a fine alternative album, and, for me, a better one.