‘Born in the USA’: Bruce Springsteen’s most misunderstood song
Bruce Springsteen’s music always brings to mind the spirit of America. Throughout his career, Springsteen always saw his musical journey as a sort of realisation of the ‘American Dream’, as he fought tooth and nail for what he believed in until eventually hitting the big time with Born to Run. Although he may have carved out a niche for himself as a heartland rocker, one of his biggest flag-waving songs has a cynical edge.
Looking at the main song lyrics, ‘Born in the USA’ should be played on every Independence Day until the end of time, as The Boss mentions wearing his American pride on his sleeve, intoning about how he was born in the US to anyone within earshot. As much as the song sounds triumphant, Springsteen was writing from a far darker place when he put together the songs for the record.
Throughout the song, Springsteen’s protagonist is far more jaded about his role in America, having served overseas in the Vietnam war and losing many of his friends along the way. After he was drafted to fight a battle he didn’t want to be a part of, he wasn’t welcomed back home with open arms either, with freedom fighters spitting on him and treating him like dirt just for doing what he was told.
There’s even some vocabulary that hasn’t aged well, as he uses a derogatory term about going and killing the Vietnamese. Across the song, Springsteen is crying for his nation, even shedding a tear for the brothers that didn’t make it back home. Towards the middle of the track, Springsteen cites one of his friends that got blown away and doesn’t even finish the rest of the verse, as if he’s so choked up with emotion that he needs to take a pause.
Getting past the emotional baggage, Springsteen is also highly critical of the American government in ‘Born in the USA’, taking aim at the suits in Washington, who left him in the lurch after the war was over. Though he might have been able to fight the war for them, this soldier wasn’t given any help towards the end, having nowhere to go and running for his whole life through the jungle.
That didn’t matter to most fans of Springsteen, though, who merely took it as a patriotic salute, with one advertisement even running the newly minted rocker as a ‘Yankee Doodle Springsteen’. Once the layers of 1980s synthesisers were peeled back, though, Springsteen’s characters across this album are all going through something, whether it’s the person lost in America and unable to find their way home on ‘Downbound Train’ or not recognising one’s old stomping grounds on ‘My Hometown’. Even a song as laid back as ‘Glory Days’ is meant to be satirical, as these two characters are stuck in the past and will probably never change their ways.
So as much as people might love to blast this to declare their love for America, there’s a good chance that Springsteen is looking back at those same people with a sly grin. America might be a great place to live for some, but this song is about the back alleys that none of the big whigs in Washington wants people to know about.
