The New Republic

Couldn't agree more. I rather wish the Stones would lay down their instruments, but I'll take Sir Mick's mercenary decadence over Bruce's bogus politics any day of the week.

- AaronW

August 2, 2012 at 7:35pm

Don't know enough about Springsteen to know if he is right or not. But I found this piece fun to read. I just noticed that Springs-teen spells his name with the eternal "teen." Is this an accident or is this how Bruce chose to spell his name?

- arnon1

August 2, 2012 at 10:01pm

Will chime in only to dissent..."Death To My Hometown" from the new "Wrecking Ball" album is the best protest song that's been written maybe in 40 years. And the title track is a helluva song, too. Check it out. So the guy's made himself rich through tireless performing, writing and recording. Good for him...keep on going Bruce!

- SteveJudd

August 3, 2012 at 12:59am

Oh, is Leon Wieseltier still around? It had been so long since he'd offered any insightful commentary, I'd forgotten. With all of the young and dynamic writers that TNR has in its stable, it's a wonder why the magazine hasn't put him out to pasture... not because of his age, but because of his irrelevance. What unadulterated silliness this piece was. What a pitiful screed. One of America's most elitist and irrelevant essayists decides to castigate writers, politicians and a whole bunch of ordinary folks because they find Springsteen's music inspiring and his concerts wonderful parties. Yes, some wealthy, powerful people like him. But it's not as though the few who bother reading LW are the salt of the earth. But more to the point, Remnick actually did some work in order to put together a revealing portrait of the artist as a far-from-young-man. Far more than LW does in composing his armchair commentaries. And even more to the point, Springsteen's recent albums have illuminated the pain of 9/11, the trickery of the Bush Administration and the injustice of our Great Recession. And at the same time, he's managed to mix in some messages of hope and his concerts have remained a hell of a lot of fun. In the end, LW just doesn't get it. What else can you say about a writer who compares a rock star to Dodd Frank? Or who so pompously declares that no, we don't take care of our own. But we claim to. And to some extent we used to. And we could and should again. If LW's pomposity were not in the way, he'd understand that. Please go back to your literary reviews or whatever it is you putter around with, LW.

- Thunderroad

August 3, 2012 at 2:57am

This is one of the most entertaining pieces I've ever read in TNR. Leon's still got it. Unfortunately, the Boss doesn't. He's been going through the motions for years. That's not to say he didn't hit America like a lightning bolt in the mid-Seventies, and that songs like "Darkness at the Edge of Town" aren't some of my all-time favorites. But we all lose whatever greatness we had when we were young. I heard that even the Stones are going to retire one of these decades (I can still see Jagger prancing back and forth across the stage in an Uncle Sam top hat, a long, red scarf, and blue tights during his Let It Bleed tour in 1969 in Detroit. It's an image I will carry with me to my grave. But if the Stones ever get back to Detroit, they might want to visit a Scooter Store on the way. Springsteen might go with them. I don't have anything against fulsome praise of a former great rock star (which, obviously, Leon does), but I don't have anything against a negative piece with a bunch of delicious zingers in it either. In fact, I love it. Thunderroad, I think Leon was contrasting the methods that Springsteen and Dodd-Frank would use to deal with Wall Street fat cats, rather than comparing a rock star to Dodd-Frank.

- magboy47.

August 3, 2012 at 4:02am

The last decade as been one of Springsteen's most prolific as an artist. He released six studio albums of varied styles: The Rising, Devils and Dust, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Magic, Working on a Dream, and Wrecking Ball. The Seeger Sessions brought classic American folk music to a contemporary audience. He has written some of the most poignant songs of his career: You're Missing, My City of Ruins, The Last Carnival, The Wrestler, Jack of All Trades. He also has written some of the most overtly sexual songs of his career: The Fuse and Reno. His political activism has challenged or alienated the working class, more right-leaning segment of his fan base. He continues to deliver full-throttle live shows and has kept ticket prices lower than many of contemporaries. His live shows are extremely respectful of his audience, he rarely repeats a set list; he takes requests from the audience; and a couple years ago he played full albums live for the first time. With all that said, as a fan of the Boss for thirty years, my favorite albums remain those from earlier in his career. I long for the next Born to Run or Darkness on the Edge of Town. But Bruce as evolved and changed over the years as an artist. I learned a long time ago that Springsteen is not for everyone. Though I did manage to convert my wife who is been to more than a dozen live shows with me. I also understand that a certain age cohort of fans are now in a position to have their exuberance thrust upon the world in major media outlets. Perhaps Springsteen has received excessive praise. But does that mean he has to be knocked down a couple dozen pegs to put the universe back in balance? I don't think so, but it probably will sell a few magazines and make Mr. Wieseltier relevant in the pop culture zeitgeist for a few passing moments.

- bzahradnik

August 3, 2012 at 7:33am

Sheesh Leon. And the ink isn't even dry on the epistles. He should write a song about what it is like to be owned by an anthem. I can feel it already. The pathos and drama. Yeah magboy, I went to the Stones final concert tour back in 1980. Campy fun complete with an aging rooster on acid belting out Start Me Up. Didn't know he wasn't kidding.

- jacko

August 3, 2012 at 7:34am

I just want to mention that Leon W is one of the few reasons I have for hanging out on these pages. Him and some of my favorite posters. Basman, Arnon, Irony, Noga, and even Roid who is about as partisan and prickly as they come. WilliamYard was an interesting bloke. Not to forget Channy. I'm hanging up my tour here. It's time. If I have forgotten anybody well then that's on me. Leon.... you rock, man. Love your stuff. Adios amigos.

- jacko

August 3, 2012 at 7:58am

Thank you, Leon. I laughed out loud. I have always had some sympathy for how Springsteen's fans feel about him, but never been able to share it. Years ago, "The River" should have been a song about the first half of my life, and I could hardly wait to hear it. Unfortunately it was a boring song. Popular music now is like one of those streams in 19th-century California: you have to put it through a sieve hoping to find a nugget now and then. Fortunately, there's classical, jazz, Americana (the real thing, not the New Yorker version)...

- doneth

August 3, 2012 at 8:03am

What made Springsteen great (the Bob Dylan of his time he was often called in the early years) was that he wrote and sang about individuals, individual aspirations, individual suffering, individual longing, individual disappointments. A theme that appealed to all Americans, left, right, and center. How else could a song, Born in the USA, become the anthem of many conservatives. Below are the lyrics from the first verse of Born to Run and all the lyrics from my favorite One Step Up. Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend I want to guard your dreams and visions Just wrap your legs around these velvet rims and strap your hands 'cross my engines Together we could break this trap We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back h-Oh, Will you walk with me out on the wire `Cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider But I gotta know how it feels I want to know if love is wild Babe I want to know if love is real Woke up this morning my house was cold Checked out the furnace she wasn't burnin' Went out and hoped in my old Ford Hit the engine but she ain't turnin' We've given each other some hard lessons lately But we ain't learnin' We're the same sad story that's a fact One step up and two steps back Bird on a wire outside my motel room But he ain't singin' Girl in white outside a church in June But the church bells they ain't ringing I'm sittin' here in this bar tonight But all I'm thinkin' is I'm the same old story same old act One step up and two steps back It's the same thing night on night Who's wrong baby who's right Another fight and I slam the door on Another battle in our dirty little war When I look at myself I don't see The man I wanted to be Somewhere along the line I slipped off track I'm caught movin' one step up and two steps back There's a girl across the bar I get the message she's sendin' Mmm she ain't lookin' to married And me well honey I'm pretending Last night I dreamed I held you in my arms The music was never-ending We danced as the evening sky faded to black One step up and two steps back

- rayward

August 3, 2012 at 8:05am

Like Leon Wieseltier, I saw Springsteen in 1975, on the Born to Run tour. It was the best concert I ever attended - huge energy, fantastic feeling in the crowd and the Boss was just awesome. But I was 17 which, um, made a difference. Neither I nor Bruce is going to bring back the energy from 35+ years ago - and I agree with Weiseltier that Goldberg and Remnick shouldn't pretend it's still the same. But I am more grateful to Springsteen for that fantastic concert in 1975 than Leon Wieseltier seems to be for the ones he went to back then.

- rriley

August 3, 2012 at 10:46am

The way Jake on 2 1/2 Men says, giggling, say, "He said 'penis,'" I say, giggling, "He said 'derecho.'"

- basman

August 3, 2012 at 11:09am

Dion is still making good music.

- tivra

August 3, 2012 at 11:12am

Jacko, my friendly, say it ain't so. And thanks for the nice mention, and thanks to Malahat too for the confirmatory nod. Same comment back to you both. Jack, send me your contact info so we can at least keep in touch. I'm at itzikbasman@sympatico.ca.

- basman

August 3, 2012 at 11:15am

To see LW use this "sentence" to describe an artist's work is simply too perfect for words: "The sanctimony, the grandiosity, the utterly formulaic monumentality; the witlessness; the tiresome recycling of those anthemic figures, each time more preposterously distended." Full disclosure: I have no particular fondness for Springsteen's oeuvre.

- bunthorne

August 3, 2012 at 11:49am

Sorry to see one of the great ones leave, jacko. I share your admiration for Leon--except when he delves into the Middle East, where he gets lost (like Marty used to). Take care.

- magboy47.

August 3, 2012 at 12:18pm

And a tip o' the hat to you, too, malahat. You're one of the good ones at TNR. I agree that the new management seems to be aiming for a new, social-media-oriented readership (gee, I wonder why--hint: Facebook). That's okay. That's life. Like they say, the only thing that doesn't change is change. But it's still sad to see the great ones--like Springsteen and Jagger in their primes--pass.

- magboy47.

August 3, 2012 at 12:38pm

In the New Yorker, Springsteen is quoted as saying to his mother, as they watched Elvis on TV, "I want to do that!" I can think of recordings by any of the artists malahat lists to which I have that reaction. I don't want to be like Billie Holiday in any sense (nor am I capable of more than a tiny fraction of the musical understanding of an epochal virtuoso like Schnabel), but there are subtleties and turns, in her later recordings especially, that I want to revisit over and over. I play guitar, and have for 36 years, and I can't think of any recording by Springsteen that makes me say, "I want to do that!" But Keith Richards playing rhythm guitar for Tom Waits makes my say that. How much $ Keef has really doesn't enter into it.

- aanassar

August 3, 2012 at 1:36pm

To paraphrase a review of the aging Hemingway: this piece is the fart of an old horse.

- larose

August 3, 2012 at 2:33pm

Jacko, I second the chorus and say that I'm sad that you're handing in your ID card, timesheet, and parking tag, and heading out -- I feel sometimes that the old TNR talkbacker stadium has emptied, except for a scattered crowd of diehards who don't want to go home, or don't have the cab fare. As far as Bruce goes, I think it's totally fine to have someone with his stature and body of work, not to mention global cultural credit, on our side and openly so. If he's nothing more than "Howard Zinn with a guitar" then why has he come out and played for both Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08? "Howard Zinn with a guitar" would be at a totally different gig, warbling a duet with Noam Chomsky about how the Dems and Repubs are basically both two wings of the same imperialist establishment. Articles rooted in individual musical taste should not try to graft on political commentary -- it rarely works, especially in TNR, a journal that doesn't have a lot of historical credibility in the popular music area.

- ironyroad

August 3, 2012 at 2:37pm

"Articles rooted in individual musical taste should not try to graft on political commentary -- it rarely works, especially in TNR, a journal that doesn't have a lot of historical credibility in the popular music area." yes

- bunthorne

August 3, 2012 at 2:44pm

The rock critic Bill Wyman (not the Rolling Stones bassist) once made a great observation: rock and soul music are the only art forms whose creative content is dominated by young people. Sure there are young writers, painters, choreographers, sculptors, etc. but they are the exceptions. The surprising thing about Springsteen and a handful of others (like the Stones) is that they were able to make good music into their 30's (I think "Darkness on the Edge of Town" and "The River" albums are the best things Springsteen wrote)

- Lymon1

August 3, 2012 at 4:17pm

No one tries harder to be counter-intuitive than Leon Wieseltier, often to (intended) comic effect. But I found this one strained. Is losing one's lyrical touch an (unintended) Wieseltier projection?

- NR152987

August 3, 2012 at 4:32pm

It's been a long while since I've written anything of length here and since I liked a lot this piece, have ambivalent feelings about Remnick, essentially don 't get Bruce Springsteen's music, and am in a restless mood here goes. I'm an immense non expert on B.S., whose rock and roll I don't really get and am essentially indifferent too, unlike Dion whose rock and roll I've loved for the first moment I heard it till this very moment, and unlike James Brown whose soul and R and B I've loved for the same duration. So this piece is interesting to me for four reasons: 1. what it tells me about Springsteen from the vantage point of Wieseltier's eyes and ears; 2. what it tells me about Wieseltier himself; 3. what it tells me about what he thinks of Remnick on Springsteen; and 4. what it tells me about rock and roll as Wieseltier thinks about it. (The only song of B.S.'s I love, not having listened attentively or systematically to him, and not knowing one of his albums from the next, a true incidental listener to him, is Fire, which, I think, is a pantheonic song.) I haven't and won't read Remnick's article on B.S. but I did see him interviewed by the-that-time cloying and ponderous Charlie Rose who together with Remnick seemed to me to lavish on Springsteen whose phenomenality, to me, outstrips his musicality, attention and serious and celebratory consideration worthy of a cure for cancer or the discovery of a new planet or a recently discovered novel of Ralph Ellison. My peak of impatience during the interview chimes in with with Wieseltier's  .... But it is also comic, as protest songs become entertainment for the rich, and Bruce Springsteen the idol of the elite. The New Yorker clinches it: he is the least dangerous man in America. “With all the unrest in the world,” as Tony Curtis once said to Marilyn Monroe, “I don’t think anyone should have a yacht that sleeps more than twelve.”... as Remnick shrugged off the paradox of B.S.'s immense wealth, fame and social capital and his channeling Howard Zinn so to speak. The shrug dissolved into a silent indifference as if to say, "Well what are ya' gonna' do," with no effort to tease out the interesting  implications and difficulties  of this contrariety.  This shrugging indifference seemed to me consistent with the massive gap, noted, between the fawning pseudo profound attention paid to B.S. and that he, at least to me, doesn't match up to it. (In this, Rose's interview of Remnick reminded me of nothing so much as when he has intellectually flabby  actors and such intoning with the deepest solemnity about some fatuous movie they've  just been in, like recently, Stone's Savages, with Rose treating them and their stupid movie with a near hour's worth of reverential respect.) My response here chimes in with Wieseltier's  ...When Remnick turns from reporting to commentary, the earnestness becomes embarrassing, which is to say, fully the match of the earnestness of his subject: Springsteen’s new album, he patiently explains, is “shot through with a liberal insistence that American patriotism has less to do with the primacy of markets than with a Rooseveltian sense of fairness and a communal sense of belonging.”  Just wrap your legs round these paperbacks... I've listened, or rather tried to, to B.S.'s social protest albums and have wanted desperately to like them, be deeply moved by them, but always found my attention drifting away and the listening experience flat, sensing more the effort at being compelling and profound rather than the compelling profundity itself, sensing more someone going through the stylized emotions of heralding the dispossessed and the marginal rather than feeling authentic, affecting representations of their dispossession and marginality. I had a further heightened moment of bemused impatience during the Rose interview when Rose and Remnick effused over the amazing length, sweatiness, physicality and intensity of B.S.'s concerts--the reigning hardest working man in show business--and to anchor their effusion showed a clip of about a minute from a recent concert whose vintage I do not know. In that minute I saw certainly a lot of sweat, grimacing physicality and so on, but what I heard was a amusical rasping, contrast this with even Dylan for example, and a ton of loud noise that didn't get beyond being that. That moment, similar to other longer moments of portions of a B.S. concert, chimes in with Wieseltier's ...DO THESE MEN HAVE EARS... and his  ....But there is nothing daft or insouciant, nothing crazy free, about Springsteen’s exuberance anymore... Save for some of his earlier rock and roll, my indifference to B.S.'s music stems from something generic about him that has roots in inauthenticity, lack of compelling specificity. Here the contrast with James Brown is instructive, as it would have been to with Tina Turner,  when she sang with Ike. As Wiesletier says, right on the money, about James Brown's gloriousness: ....but Brown’s shocking intensity, his gaudy stamina, his sea of sweat, was about, well, fucking... In the words of M.C. Hammer, B.S. "can't touch this." I listened to James Brown and Dion, for examples, without an iota of impatience. Rather, I can't get enough of them, don't want them to stop. With B.S., I'm forever looking at my watch, wanting to change the station, channel, thinking about whether I turned off faucets and locked my door. Wieseltier captures the operative distinction here: "fucking" as against having "your organs stimulated" and the contrast is a grain of sand in which to see the whole B.S. musical world. One final note about rock and roll: I don't agree that one of its duties is to create nostalgia. Rather, it having been, before it became rock as such, a young person's music, and therefore a formative music, nostalgia is incidental to it rather than one rock and roll's missions. Any pop and popular music that any generation listens to growing up will have that nostalgic consequence, without nostalgia being musically integral. (There is some pop and popular music that is self consciously nostalgic. But that's a horse of another color.) Too I cannot make the connection between rock and roll, which is actually a fucking metaphor, and Marcuse being right, though good right not bad right. Rock and roll about girls, teen age angst, sexual mystery to the young, had little to do with North American contradictions, as far as I can see, of the kind Marcuse was concerned with.  If someone can make that case, I'd be obliged, presuming anyone is interested enough to read all this discursiveness.

- basman

August 3, 2012 at 6:53pm

It may be a banal point, but Bruce Springsteen is not James Brown, and neither is James Brown Bruce Springsteen. Nor was Louis Armstrong Woody Guthrie, nor Woody Guthrie Louis Armstrong. Finally, for what it's worth, Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" is not Ray and Dave Davies' "Waterloo Sunset" which is, in turn, not Jacques Brel's "Port of Amsterdam" -- oh, and Vaclav Havel is not Lou Reed, nor Lou Reed Vaclav Havel. I think the point I'm making is not that nobody can be legitimately compared to anyone else, but that comparisons that assert that X can't do Y as well as Z, when it's open to considerable dispute as to whether X was in fact trying to do Y, are contentious and provoke more heat than light. I would suggest, however, that Frank Sinatra did not do "Mrs Robinson" as well as Simon and Garfunkel (in fact he fucked it up, as we appear with Leon's permission to be talking about fucking), and that almost certainly has something to do with the failure of McGovern's 1972 campaign. And the complex messaging of Joan Baez's version of Levon Helm's "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down" is still resonating in our political culture. I heard Levon play in the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville in April '08. He was 68.

- ironyroad

August 3, 2012 at 10:24pm

Not all comparisons are odious and some are instructive.

- basman

August 3, 2012 at 10:59pm

L Wieseltier does hit upon a compelling point: the kitschy mania articulated - gushed - by aging, chunky belly over the belt white dudes for The Runt does seem like "a cry against the clock" and kinda sad. I like Springsteen but perhaps due to my more colorful (figuratively & literally) atavism, I have never given myself over to Mumbles.

- MrCookie1

August 3, 2012 at 11:36pm

irony, Levon. Now there's a dude who still had it in old age. His gravelly voice just got better as he eased into what should have been his retirement years. And his songs never wavered in quality. A country gentleman of rare distinction was he. If I had to make a choice of what type of music I could listen to and no other, it would be really good country. Vince Gill is borderline really good country. I just bought another of his albums, and there are 4 songs on it that I can listen to over and over. How was Gill at your Tennessee music festival, basman?

- magboy47.

August 4, 2012 at 12:19am

"I kinda think it would be difficult to dispute that James Brown was making a political statement in the lyrics of Say It Loud." I kinda think so too, mal. And that's one reason why I never said he wasn't. But listen to Brandi Carlisle and her band doing "Sounds of Silence" on that Live in Seattle record almost as an eerie replica. The Vienna boys can surface in unexpected places, far away from that street where Harry Lime lived. One of the first songs that I heard that suddenly pulled me from childhood into somewhere else was Petula Clark singing "Homeward Bound." Chacun a son gout -- that's Quebecois for "Jacking off gives you arthritis," right?

- ironyroad

August 4, 2012 at 12:41am

With all due respect to the various perspectives aired here, I think folks are missing several things about Springsteen: 1. Whether he's being political or not, he puts on an incredible concert - all the more so for someone pushing 63. It repeatedly moves his audience from tears to cheers and back. But the power of the performance lies not just in the show itself. The songs resonate much more for his fans after they have seen him sing them live. And there's no doubt that even as he makes big money off of performing, the energy he puts into his shows make them true labors of love. Unlike the lazy utterances of our way over-the-hill LW. 2. Has his music changed over the years? Of course! If he were still singing the same songs about the same themes, he'd be correctly criticized for being stuck in a lifelong rut. 3. It's true that not as many of his songs paint portraits of individuals, but many remain powerfully personal. Empty Sky (from The Rising) implies how planes were grounded after 9/11, but is much more about the loss of faith the attack engendered and the profound loss we suffer when a husband, wife or partner leaves this this life and our side. 4. At the same time, he demonstrates how a few words can convey some penetrating insights. Paradise (also from The Rising) is also about the loss of a loved one due to 9/11, but illuminates the void in the jihadists' vision in its closing lyrics, about eyes as empty as paradise. In a much angrier vein, he cuts to the chase in Death to My Hometown (from Wrecking Ball) by calling out the Wall Street wizards whose unaccountable financial fireworks torched hundreds of millions of lives, and calling them what they are - robber barons. Contrast this with this LW line that bunthorne so astutely quoted: "The sanctimony, the grandiosity, the utterly formulaic monumentality; the witlessness; the tiresome recycling of those anthemic figures, each time more preposterously distended." Sometimes less really is more, especially in contrasting Springsteen's succinct insights with LW's grandiloquent blathering. 5. Yeah, the guy is super-wealthy and is by no means the working class kid of his early years. But he long ago admitted how pathetic it would be to pretend to be a rich man in a poor man's shirt. That partly accounts for the shift in his songs. And it doesn't disqualify him from holding on to some empathy for the many people who lost love ones to terrorism, got screwed by Bushism, and became broke at the hands of some of the same indifferent elites that, for all of we know, LW sips his oh-so-fine vintage wines with. What's more, Springsteen has put time and effort into get-out-the-vote drives, food banks and other worthy causes I wonder when was the last time LW bothered with such things. He certainly can't be bothered to do so in his columns. Look, there are few things more subjective than taste in music. And people are entitled to their likes and dislikes. But it would be worthwhile to try to put a bit more effort than LW did into understanding why so many people like and admire Springsteen.

- Thunderroad

August 4, 2012 at 3:59am

Thanks for the thoughtful post, T-road, one with which I completely agree. And just can't help posting some of the lyrics from "Death To My Hometown": "No shells ripped the evening sky, no cities burning down No army stormed the shores for which we'd die, no dictators were crowned I awoke from a quiet night, I never heard a sound The marauders raided in the dark and brought death to my hometown, boys Death to my hometown They destroyed our families, factories, and they took our homes They left our bodies on the plains, the vultures picked our bones So listen up, my sonny boy, be ready for when they come For they'll be returning sure as the rising sun Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it 'til you're done Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well Send the robber barons straight to hell The greedy thieves who came around And ate the flesh of everything they found Whose crimes have gone unpunished now Who walk the streets as free men now Ah, they brought death to our hometown, boys, death to my hometown...."

- SteveJudd

August 4, 2012 at 9:50am

To me those just above overwrought lyrics make Wieseltier's case, especially as they come from B.S.

- basman

August 4, 2012 at 11:02am

I liked thunderroad's (that is a telegraph if ever) perspective and his well reasoned defense of The Runt. Good show. As I said, I was never a huge fan of Mumbles but - and I mean this seriously - your comments gave me a better understanding of why so many people are. Here is a question for you: Why do you think that Springsteen is so popular - and for some, crucial to the self conception - of middle aged white guys? This is not a snarky question, I am serious. I am middle aged but not white and I just don't get the currency that some of my friends, and people like Chris Christie, put into their emotional attachment to BS.

- MrCookie1

August 4, 2012 at 11:55am

I don't know, Cookie, but I admit I find Chris Christie's emotional attachment in particular just weird (assuming it's genuine). It's hard to understand how anyone who had even the remotest emotional connection to Springsteen could engage in the general and sometimes individual attacks on working people that CC and his kind are fond of. But then, I love the poetry of the arch-conservative (and part-time antisemite) T.S. Eliot.

- ironyroad

August 4, 2012 at 2:28pm

SteveJudd, I couldn't agree more about Death to My Hometown. Almost my favorite song on the album. (A very close second to Rocky Ground.) basman and especially malahat, as you may know, or at least should know, the words in any kind of writing (novels, political columns, poetry, songs, even putrid, self-satisfied TNR essays) should not always be taken literally. Do you really think that Springsteen thinks that singing a song about greedy robber barons will send them to hell? I don't think so. At the risk of over-analyzing lyrics that don't need much analysis, there are a lot of truths packed into these words: So listen up, my sonny boy, be ready for when they come For they'll be returning sure as the rising sun Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it 'til you're done Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well Send the robber barons straight to hell The greedy thieves who came around And ate the flesh of everything they found Whose crimes have gone unpunished now Who walk the streets as free men now What are these truths? That the same financial companies and characters that screwed so many will be back to do the same, notwithstanding LW's incredibly naive faith in the ineffective, watered-down law and regulations that in effect constitute Dodd Frank. That, as I've noted, these folks really are best characterized as robber barons. That many did commit crimes that have not been properly investigated, let alone punished. That one thing that needs to be done is not to literally sing a song, of course, but to bear in mind these truths because we'll be crashing into them again. And you don't have to be a Springsteen fan to make such assertions. Far more knowledgeable economic, political and legal minds than LW (not that that's saying much at all) have said the same. MrCookie1, what in the world in my TNR handle makes you think I'm a Springsteen fan? Seriously, you pose a very good question about middle-aged white guys being big fans, though I'd extend that devotion to middle-aged white gals as well - though without the self-conception part of your question - and to some extent even some younger white folks. Putting aside for the moment the other interesting question about why relatively few people of color are attached to Springsteen, I can only speak for myself and possibly extrapolate from there: We grew up with him, in a sense. We identified with the earlier, largely apolitical songs, be it about jobs or working class struggles or intense but intensely flawed relationships (with She's the One, from the album Born to Run, being a personal favorite of mine) or rebelling against our parents, or whatever. And we moved on to appreciate how his music evolved along with our lives (with, for example, the song With Every Wish (comes a curse), beautifully illustrating the old chestnut about being careful of getting what you wish for). And as he became more political, a lot of us identified with a lot of that. And, equally to the point, he simply has continued to churn out great songs and great shows over the years, unlike so many near-contemporaries (such as the Stones) who as Remnick's article indicates became uninspired cover bands for themselves eventually. Or to put the point more simply, his music and concerts have continued to consistently inspire us. It's hard to find any other cultural presence that's remained on the scene in an evolving, energetic way for so long. And after all of the PR and carefully rehearsed polished performances and inevitable human flaws are taken into account, I'd say many of us do still see a certain integrity to the guy. And, again, I would not underestimate the influence of those great concerts. All this being said, I'd say even the fans have the songs, albums and traits that they like more than others - or simply don't like. Where and why did a kid from Jersey get the occasional twang and the Middle America influences in his music? We take the good with the questionable just because we like the good so much. And that helps some of us take the time to appreciate his songs more rather than giving them a straight thumbs up or down when we first hear them. When I first listened to the aforementioned Death to My Hometown, I thought it sounded like an Irish jig (and in fact it might well have been influenced by music about 19th century Irish-American labor struggles), not like Bruce. But I gave it a chance and came to love both the tune and the message. In contrast, I consider Working on a Dream, the album before the latest, to be pretty much a clunker. Briefly, and without giving the matter its due, I'd say that the fan base is predominantly white because you can't appeal to everyone, because for whatever reasons Bruce turned left toward Middle America rather than right toward more urban NYC as his music headed up and away from the New Jersey Turnpike after the first couple of albums, and because he's a white guy singing about his white experiences (though some resonate pretty universally, I'd argue). To the extent that he's occasionally branched out from that whiteness without pretending he's anything other than who he is, he's written some good stuff about Mexicans making their way to this country, with Wrecking Ball's We Are Alive alluding to that and the powerful, rousing American Land (another Irish jig!) being largely about that. And the current, reconstituted band and elements of Wrecking Ball (most notably my favorite song, Rocky Ground) and his current concert tour do return a bit to the urban roots of his early career, for whatever that's worth. ironyroad, I suspect that folks like Christie and Brooks (whose comment about jetting off to Europe to catch a Springsteen show indeed was embarrassing) embrace Springsteen for the same reasons that many fans (including me) do - they screen out the elements they don't like and concentrate on the many things they love, perhaps especially the fun and dynamism of the concerts. Or maybe they simply misinterpret his lyrics' critical commentary; after all, Reagan praised Born in the USA as being about American greatness.

- Thunderroad

August 4, 2012 at 4:22pm

malahat: ". . . evoke a fantasized back-story . . ." Yup, that's one thing art can do . . .

- ironyroad

August 4, 2012 at 4:49pm

In the early 1980's I had a college room mate from Englewood New Jersey. And Bruce Stringsteen was about as good as it got back then. The Wild The Innocent & the E-Street Shuffle, Greetings from Asbury Park, great albums. Recently listening to this music I fell in love with Incident on 57st Street, from TWTI&TESS. The song before Rosalita. For some reason I just love that song. I found about 10 different versions on the internet and was blown away when I found out he reworked the song and had a great violinist, Suki Lahve. He took away the great bass and guitar, and made it magical. I have stayed away from his later stuff. Probably irrational prejudice. I think it's so funny when these writers do their Springsteen Pieces and really don't know the catalog. They have to write a piece on deadline, and a Springsteen Concert is a great perk. As my room mate told me, there is nothing better than a Springsteen concert in New Jersey.

- CRS9TNR

August 4, 2012 at 4:49pm

T Road, if you're interested, I'll mount a reply to your long post on that song, your comment addressed to me and more particularly Malahat. If you're weary of all this, I'm happy to leave things where they be. This is a good thread in any event, and it's been a while since there's been this kind of good back and forth here.

- basman

August 4, 2012 at 5:13pm

Excellent piece and analysis. Yes, Marcuse was correct, and protest becomes a commodity like all else to be absorbed into the system and resold as something safe, tamed by nostalgia. . .

- ProvostA

August 4, 2012 at 9:15pm

Dang Thunderroad, that is some of the best rock commentary I have read outside of Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, and Robert Hilburn. You have answered my question and done so quite elegantly. Thanks! I truly appreciate the time and effort you put into your wonderful reply. Rock on all middle aged white dudes!!!

- MrCookie1

August 4, 2012 at 9:31pm

Thunderroad, I have a whole passel of tnr expats - and some current commentators like JackR & Basman as my facebook friends. We have a blast talkin' politics, art, movies, you name it. If you are interested, send me a fb friend request. My name is Ken Gallegos. And if any other folks are interested, feel free. Free wheeler like basman, JackR, Channy, and wandrercer can be one of my character references.

- MrCookie1

August 4, 2012 at 9:38pm

ProvostA What I'm missing re Marcuse is what does rock and roll and especially its early iteration have to with deep protest of the kind that attacked the "contradictions"--pace Marcuse--of American society?

- basman

August 4, 2012 at 10:01pm

Basman: This is a good thread in any event, and it's been a while since there's been this kind of good back and forth here. I have to agree. It's been a while. Kind of takes me back to the old days. Often as not Leon has a way, by virtue of his kaleidoscopic criterion, of inviting exploration and multi-filtered regard per observations. We have everything from stimulus of organic and economic implication. A little bit of justice and methods of effective pursuit. From authenticities to sycophancies. Throw in a few guitar chops and 62 year old tight buns and you have the basis for an interesting conversation. Short of certain religious undercurrents that always accompany these collective ratification phenomena I suspect that Bruce Springsteen makes a conscious effort to capitalize upon the search for thoughtful masculinity that has been in play since the sixties. An alchemical mix of passion and vulnerability. White guys have been in the crosshairs of this multifaceted scope for some time now. Malahat. Yours are kind words and I want to apologize for your name not a first off consideration. Out of sight and out of mind. It's just been a while since we've talked. You're tops man. You continue" I'd also add arnon* (done), amidut, blackie, Hershel Ginsburg and magboy and jackr" It is rightly said and so done. Itz. I'll get back to you. I WILL miss you interesting folks but I find I need to reorder the time and efforts that require my attention these days. With a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work perhaps I'll be fortunate enough that Springsteen or Wieseltier can trash me out, too.

- jacko

August 4, 2012 at 10:25pm

Springsteen arrived on the scene some years past the high era of the protest song and the complex of political movements such as the SDS that carried it. In fact, the curious way in which Springsteen -- although he's not the only one -- opened up both rock and roll and folk traditions to each other (as Dylan had done in a more original style, but not with the blue-collar content) is itself a sign of shifting genres and flexible audiences in the 1970s and 1980s. That he could e.g. do both Born to Run and Nebraska within a few years of each other and have them both warmly embraced suggests that his audience was (and is) willing to look beyond style and posture to something more enduring in his music.

- ironyroad

August 4, 2012 at 11:48pm

I'm with McC, T-Road---an excellent post. I'll even say a mini-essay on the topic. I think a song can become an anthem that speaks to an overriding issue of the times ("John Brown's Body", "We Shall Overcome", even "God Bless America"), and while I'm not saying his songs rise to that level, many for me are powerful statements and protest I hear as sincere. Anyway, am not even sure if I still qualify for late middle-aged anymore (I'm even two months older than Springsteen), so welcome suggestions for new terminology that's suitable to Boomer self-absorption and denial of aging. How about "Pre-Elderly" anyone?

- SteveJudd

August 5, 2012 at 2:00am

I understand Christie hangs around after Springsteen concerts, hoping to be invited backstage, but the Boss has never deigned to do it. irony, I share your admiration for T.S. Eliot, bigot that he could be. I heard an old recording of him reading "Waste Land." Knocked me out.

- magboy47.

August 5, 2012 at 12:03pm

Thanks, malahat, for the Marty Peretz WSJ interview link. There I found out some of the things that Marty really believes, instead of having to read him dancing around an issue, like he sometimes did at TNR. I'd highly recommend reading the interview. One of the things I found out is that Marty wants Obama to basically be a Zionist--to defend Israel at all times on all issues. Pretty silly, considering that Obama is the U.S. president and that the interests of the U.S. don't always coincide with those of Israel. Religious Right wingnuts would disagree, but then, they disagree with anything that isn't tinged with fanaticism. I do agree with Marty about what a mess the Arab and Muslim world is. And it starts with their religion, which allows, even encourages, the men to step on the necks of women. A nation cannot be considered modern until women are an integral part of its culture, economics, and politics. America is not totally modern in that respect, but it's light years ahead of the Arab and Muslim world.

- magboy47.

August 5, 2012 at 4:05pm

Robert Powell.

- jacko

August 5, 2012 at 4:14pm

malahat, basman, MrCookie1 and SteveJudd, thanks for your thoughtful responses and kind words re my extended commentary. I especially appreciate the respectful tone of the agreement to disagree about gold and glitter. And I guess that extends to my extremely strong preference for what some might see as Springsteen's bombast over what I see as LW's rhetorical diarrhea. SJ, I think pre-elderly is as good a term as any, though we could also try post-middle age or even kid ourselves into saying that 60 is the new 50. MrCookie1 (Ken), I very much appreciate the offer to join what sounds like a great ongoing conversation. At least for right now I'll decline, as I need to decrease rather than increase my online engagement at this point. But I might take you up on this down the line. basman, I'd welcome your reply. I might not be able to do it justice in my own subsequent comments, as work and other obligations might get in the way. Still, I agree, this a good exchange of perspectives.

- Thunderroad

August 5, 2012 at 4:39pm

Thunder - Whenever you're ready, feel free. You ain't a beauty but you're alright....Ken

- MrCookie1

August 5, 2012 at 5:27pm

and luispc. That's it...... God bless us everyone.....

- jacko

August 5, 2012 at 5:57pm

..and that's alright with me, Ken. Thanks.

- Thunderroad

August 5, 2012 at 6:03pm

Okay t road, give me a day or two and I'll post something considered (by me at least.)

- basman

August 5, 2012 at 6:51pm

Thunderroad and with respect: One idea of the first stanza is that there is a near to equation between how cannonballs, rifles, bombs, running blood and flashing (gun?) powder lay a town to waste and how "they" do the same thing to the town. "They,"we find out, are the robber barons and corporate marauders. The near to equation is facile and overwrought. Whatever robbing the marauding barons have done, and I stress they're described as robbers, nothing warrants that comparison, which both understates the immense destruction caused by war and overstates the effects of outsourcing, relocating, privileging profit, and even the laying of waste in earlier days by heedless industrialization.  The ineptness and inaptness of the comparison points to another problem touched on by Wieseltier--the generic nature of Springsteen's representations. Look at the happenstance instruments of war Springsteen lists: cannonballs,  the flash of gun powder. Really, in the 21st century, cannonballs and gun powder? This anachronistic imagery is of a piece with the generic that afflicts these lyrics, just broad words, as if any words connected to war will do. The central idea of the first stanza continues into the second, and the problems of the overwrought, overstated, and the generic continue. Now the marauding robbers are near to equated with shells ripping the evening sky, cities burning down, armies storming the shore, and the crowning of dictators--which itself is a failed, imsensible image as dictators seize power by bloody means not by a kind of royal succession and coronation.  There's a further terribly unbalanced implication in these lines, which is it wasn't worth dying for the shores which got metaphorically stormed by the thieving marauders. For regardless of "our" dying the barons "...raided in the dark and brought death to my hometown, boys/Death to my hometown." (I'd also note the gratuitousness of that "we" in"we'd die" lining up with Wieseltier's idea, which I once before noted,  ...But it is also comic, as protest songs become entertainment for the rich, and Bruce Springsteen the idol of the elite. The New Yorker clinches it: he is the least dangerous man in America. “With all the unrest in the world,” as Tony Curtis once said to Marilyn Monroe, “I don’t think anyone should have a yacht that sleeps more than twelve.”...) You suggested that in literary art we need not take words literally. I think we do need to unless there's an intentional subversion of literality in service of some other artistic purpose. Otherwise we just get flabby, indifferent words that operate like cliches conveying stock, generic image and ideas like "crowning dictators."  Neither symbolism nor metaphor excuse  indifferent literality. If anchoring meaning isn't meaningful we have bad literary art, including song writing. So I have no quarrel with "They destroyed our families’ factories and they took our homes..." but "they left our bodies on the plains/The vultures picked/ our bones" makes not much literal or metaphoric sense to me.  What anchoring literality is caught by bodies being left on the plains, and why the plains? Are those so dispossessed and so without work also and completely without agency; are they lifeless hulks whose fate is now behind them, simply refuse for vultures; does,their suffering and deprivation really come down to just this? I think not and so what we have in these lyrics, again, is stock and generic images, the product of lazy (and perhaps not so talented) craft. Finally, as Malahat noted, there is a ludicrous disproportion in the last stanza between the overwrought effects of the robber barons and singing a song hard and well as if art will send such agents of depredation and destruction straight to hell. More than anywhere else in this song is the quote from Wieseltier justified.  Again seeing the third stanza metaphorically or symbolically will do nothing to remedy the palpable absurdity of its disproportion. As if art was any answer to social malevolence! There are better things for "Sonny Boy" to do fight and beat the evil doers. Finally, there is an implication of irritating and self congratulatory implication in the plea for musical protest. For this is how Springsteen, I surmises, conceives of his art, of his telling truth to power, of playing his musical, song writing part in sending the criminals straight to hell.  I've avoided throughout these comments noting the tension between the before remarked tension between Springsteen's wealth, privilege, fame, celebrity and social power and the poverty, misery, marginality and dispossession he invokes. For the former doesn't necessarily vitiate such artistic power as the latter invocation may have. But the third stanza makes noting that tension all to the point.  The self congratulation implicit in the advice to "Sonny Boy," if that's a fair reading of a sub text of that stanza, is patently absurd considering Springsteen's  immense personal status and wealth and the socially remedial impact his songs have had, which is just about none.

- basman

August 6, 2012 at 2:30pm

Sorry for the runs of bad grammar. I didn't have time to proof read before posting.

- basman

August 6, 2012 at 3:23pm

Springsteen's career has always been about finding the gems in the dross, almost from the beginning, and the gems are always in there somewhere. Check out "Human Touch", if you haven't listened to it lately. Sure, "The Rising" is bombastic and pretentious, but I don't see how anyone can be unmoved by it. I'm not a big fan of Robert Christgau, but I think he got Springsteen right 34 years ago, when he concluded his capsule review of Darkness at the Edge of Town by saying: "An important minor artist or a rather flawed and inconsistent major one." And anyway, at this point, does it even matter much any more? His good work will stand. The guy is an American icon, and that's not likely to change.

- tmanson

August 6, 2012 at 6:58pm

basman, thanks for this careful, thoughtful analysis. I think tmanson is on to something when he talks about finding gems in the dross, though I'd suggest the gems outweigh the dross. In any event, I may not be able to get back to you on this for at least a day or two, but look forward to doing so. (Whether my eventual reply is worth reading is another matter!)

- Thunderroad

August 7, 2012 at 1:25am

It always is tr.

- basman

August 7, 2012 at 7:34am

Hey, it's only rock n roll. A record for posts? Oh what moves us! Derecho, and then a vent that becomes a veut? Pull yourselves together guys. This is not the French Revolution. And Mr W might calm down as well. You'd think he had just been patronized by a plutocrat.

- Vogelfam

August 9, 2012 at 5:35pm

basman, thanks for your post. I think we react to Springsteen's songs differently for at least four reasons: 1. You scrutinize the entirety of the lyrics; I'm satisfied with some good lines. 2. You seem to be viewing these as literary works. For me, as for Vogelfam, it's only rock 'n' roll. Great, powerful, inspiring rock 'n' roll, but when it comes to Bruce we're not talking about Dylan Thomas or even Bob Dylan. 3. You may be separating the songs from the concert performances; while I sometimes might do so, the songs particularly resonate for me during the concerts (which are peak experiences) and afterwards. 4. In a sense, you take Springsteen more seriously than I do. I love many of those lines, most of the music, and all of the concerts. And I certainly take him seriously as someone who's provided me with some fantastic experiences and inspiration. But again, it's only rock 'n' roll. In other words, it's enough for me if some great lines resonate in combination with the music and often the performances. I wouldn't love Springsteen's lines if they didn't register on some combination of intellectual, political, personal, emotional, visceral and/or experiential levels - but I have no need for it to fill all of these bills simultaneously. Thus, to share a bit of the personal and experiential, my wife's and my (middle-aged) wedding dance was to the Springsteen song, "If I Should Fall Behind (wait for me)" with the stand-out line being "You and I know what this world can do." I guess I could deconstruct some of the language and find fault with it. But those and a few other lines - again, combined with the tune - make that song special for us. For similar reasons, I never go through a Springsteen song line-by-line, breaking it down it as you astutely do in "Death to My Hometown." But to pick just a few aspects and explain why I disagree with you: 1. As for whether and when a song must be interpreted literally, for me it's sufficient for certain parts of it to pack a punch, however imprecise the correlations involved. 2. That being said, I do beg to differ in that the wartime metaphors capture the scale of the financial meltdown's damage. If war is in a very general sense often a result of selfish acts that crush humanity and wreak widespread destruction, then likening the meltdown's damage to war works fine for me. In some respects, the song even understates the case. We're not talking about a single battle when discussing the financial crisis. We're talking about hundreds of millions of lives being ruined. That's a sufficient basis for a violent metaphor for me. 3. I infer from your comments that, despite what you see as the song's myriad inadequacies it would have worked better using 21st century martial metaphors. I doubt that howitzers and drones would have proven more effective than cannonballs and gunpowder as lyrics. But for what it's worth, at least a few of the Wrecking Ball album's songs hark back to 19th century labor struggles. And entirely appropriately in my view, given how rights and services we took for granted not so long ago are threatened by those wishing a return to the Gilded Age. Given those historical roots, the 19th century martial references make sense. 4. You criticize the line that references "the crowning of dictators--which itself is a failed, imsensible image as dictators seize power by bloody means not by a kind of royal succession and coronation." Again, I don't see rhetorical precision as necessary, but in any event I'll differ with your explanation of how dictators seize power. Witness the phenomenons of the bloodless coup in some contexts, the slow chipping away of freedoms in others, or, to be most concrete, the dictatorships in Libya, Egypt, Syria and Iraq that were or would have been subject to familial succession. 5. As for your suggestion that Springsteen aims for his music to tell truth to power, I return to the notion that his aims are more modest, more personal. Or to quote Remnick (and Springsteen), Springsteen “wants his audience to leave the arena, as he commands them, ‘with your hands hurting, your feet hurting, your back hurting, your voice sore, and your sexual organs stimulated!’” He probably hopes that for some audience members the cheering, screaming and stomping spring from his calls for social justice, and that they'll take some action as a result (starting with food bank donations at the concert hall exits and extending to political action). But he doesn't take himself so seriously as to assume that he's leading a protest movement, or to think that any musician can move such mountains. It's rather a matter of connecting with folks on any of the many levels he and his audience relate to each other. And I can't emphasize strongly enough how much his concerts are parties more than protests.

- Thunderroad

August 11, 2012 at 8:05pm

TR thanks back for your long, thoughtful post. I've just seen it now for the first time. Give me a little while to absorb it. I won't answer you at length but will make a few brief "signing off" comments.

- basman

August 12, 2012 at 5:14pm

basman... What? You don't want to continue this conversation ad nauseum? I'm sure you have nothing better to do with your time. My post was worth a 5,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 word reply! But I'll settle for whatever you care to offer.

- Thunderroad

August 12, 2012 at 9:25pm

I'm one of the slower fellas: so i'm trusting that that last one there was filled with the milk of gentle irony.

- basman

August 14, 2012 at 6:28pm

Spoiler alert. I'm answering you but it's going on a bit. So fair warning here about that.

- basman

August 14, 2012 at 7:25pm

Perhaps a few, one or two, more words than I anticipated. Generally I found your penultimate comment very well argued  with some good points strongly made. I've arbitrarily broken down your second last--I'm still reeling from the scathing denunciation of the last--into two parts. In part the first you note the different ways we respond to Springsteen and then you encompass those differences in the idea "that's it's only rock and roll." I'd answer both points by saying that I don't go through rock and roll line by line and I don't respond to Springsteen that way. But the context of my going through "our song" that way was: 1. Wieseltier's noting generally the generic mediocrity of Springsteen's social protest music--a category that seems to want to transcend "it's only rock and roll;" 2. That noting being in response to the adulation implicit in Remnick's article on The Boss (and the adulation I noted as explicit in Charlie Rose's interview of Remnick concerning his article);  3. Someone way back on this thread offering our song as an example of Springsteen's art and your own good noting, and brief foray  into, the song's lyrics; and 4. Which foray made the claim I found interesting but dubious about not needing to read the words literally. (I have no experience of a Springsteen concert and that's a dimension of his music I can't address. But again the context I've outlined informs the narrower focus of what I'm arguing and trying to suggest.) (Typically, I listen to rock and roll that I love--I don't love Springsteen--along the lines of the way you say you experience Springsteen. Age could be a factor here too. Between 1958--1970 I was 12 and then 24. Rock and roll that came along after about 1970 wasn't formative for me anymore.) 1. I won't  fully readdress the first point in your "second part" about functional literal meaning of lyrics. But I want to make one comment and tie it to what I might call my thesis or argument. That is, you use a nice phrase here-"precise correlation." And what is the correlation but between reality itself and a representation of it? So scientific exactitude isn't the issue. The issue is artistically resonant imagery and metaphors, which evoke, deepen and expand how we experience the representation of reality. Cliches and poorly formulated representations blunt our experience of it. So I'll stand by my analysis of the song's  lyrics and say they're of a piece with the what I'm suggesting, echoing Wieseltier, is the generic quality in this phase of Springsteen's music.  2. It's pretty hard to argue for the adequacy or inadequacy of a metaphor but, again, I'll stick to my criticism of the almost platitudinous nature of Springsteen's main conceit. Maybe I can encapsulate my difference with you here in two ways. The first is your comment about war that ....If war is in a very general sense often a result of selfish acts that crush humanity and wreak widespread destruction, then likening the meltdown's damage to war works fine for me... There is a level of generality here that elides the specific nature of war's maiming and fatal havoc, which elision captures what I argue is the triteness of Sprinsgteen's comparison. War is burning flesh, physical dismemberment, children's bodies ravaged by armaments, the very worst physical effects on scales beggaring human imagination. There may be an artistically felicitous way of using war as a metaphor for economic havoc but war's sheer  physical effect is the way Springsteen has chosen to employ the metaphor. The consequences of the recession, of outsourcing, of global competition, of predation have been a long time in their creeping up on us, are vivid in relation to  a way of life we once had, and are humanly destructive in ways short of the war's disaster. War was, I suggest an easy reach for Springsteen. So second, and to drive this point home, I'd ask you, if you care to, to answer a charge I posed against our song originally. Quoting myself: ...What anchoring literality is caught by bodies being left on the plains, and why the plains? Are those so dispossessed and so without work also and completely without agency; are they lifeless hulks whose fate is now behind them, simply refuse for vultures; does,their suffering and deprivation really come down to just this? I think not and so what we have in these lyrics, again, is stock and generic images, the product of lazy (and perhaps not so talented) craft... In a word, how to fit the song's conceit with people's humanity and dignity even in very bad economic times, with an economy that starts to recover, if it does, with those affected putting their lives together better, working and enjoying the fruits again that--the way I see it--balanced, progressive policies might bring to America? 3 + 4. I'll leave your third and fourth point here be. 5. Undoubtedly you recapture by quoting Remnick quoting Springsteen what The Boss wants folks to get from his concerts. But do those responses get at what he wants from a song like Death To My Hometown:  hands hurting, feet hurting, back hurting, voice sore, sexual organs stimulated; a party?  I'm thinking no. I'm thinking he wants a different response to his songs of social protest, something along the lines of his advice to "sonny boy;" he wants his song to be sung hard and well; he wants it sung  "'till you're done"--i.e. a project to endure a life time; he wants the song sung in an effort to send the thieving robber barons "straight to hell." So my conception of Springsteen's intent for this song, of what he wants it to help accomplish, derives from the direct words of the song itself, and I suggest is to be differentiated from what he wants audiences to come away from his concerts with and from the laudable good works--the food banks and such--he wants some of the proceeds to enable.  I won't rehearse what I suggest is the self congratulatoriness of, as these lyrics directly say, the idea that songs will bring the capitalist predators low, really give them what they deserve. Finally, I don't see it to the point, on this aspect of Springsteen's work, to say he's not the leader of a protest movement or that he doesn't think he can move mountains. To end this much longer than expected reply where I began it,  this song exemplifies the social protest Springsteen, the part of his art Wieseltier remarks as well intentioned and sincere but generic and therefore lacking. I've tried to support that impression by trying to show what is flawed and trite and discordant in this specific song as separated from other dimensions of  Springsteen's music and as separated from the overall power and effects of his concerts. P.S. If, Dear Thunderroad, you've worked your way through all this guff and care to answer, I'm all ears. If you want to leave it where it lays, that be fine too. P. P.S. S. I don't  have the strength to reread and edit the above so here it is "skinny legs and all." So for the infinity of mistakes, typos etc. what can I tell you?

- basman

August 14, 2012 at 8:38pm

basman, if you're still checking this thread, my apologies for not checking your (again) very thoughtful comments sooner. I think it best that we agree to disagree on these many points. But even in disagreement, I really appreciate the chance to articulate my Springsteen loyalty (fanaticism???). Oh, and let me reassure you that my previous comments demanding a reply of many thousands of words was not serious, and all in good fun! I look forward to other conversations down the line.

- Thunderroad

August 22, 2012 at 7:08pm