Runaway American Dream, Hope and Disillusion in the Early Work
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Runaway American Dream HOPE AND DISILLUSION IN THE EARLY WORK OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Two young Mexican immigrants who risk their lives trying to cross the border; thousands of factory workers losing their jobs when the Ohio steel industry collapsed; a Vietnam veteran who returns to his hometown, only to discover that he has none anymore; and young lovers learning the hard way that romance is a luxury they cannot afford. All of these people have two things in common. First, they are all disappointed that, for them, the American dream has failed. Rather, it has become a bitter nightmare from which there is no waking up. Secondly, their stories have all been documented by the same artist – a poet of the poor as it were – from New Jersey. Over the span of his 43-year career, Bruce Springsteen has captured the very essence of what it means to dream, fight and fail in America. That journey, from dreaming of success to accepting one’s sour destiny, will be the main subject of this paper. While the majority of themes have remained present in Springsteen’s work up until today, the way in which they have been treated has varied dramatically in the course of those more than forty years. It is this evolution that I will demonstrate in the following chapters. But before looking at something as extensive as a life-long career, one should first try to create some order in the large bulk of material. Many critics have tried to categorize Springsteen’s work in numerous ‘phases’. Some of them have reasonable arguments, but most of them made the mistake of creating strict chronological boundaries between relatively short periods of time1, unfortunately failing to see the numerous connections between chronologically remote works2 and the continuity that Springsteen himself has pointed out repeatedly. I would like to 1 In her article on “Class and Gender in Bruce Springsteen’s rock lyrics” (1992), Pamela Moss distinguishes four phases. However, she draws quite strict boundaries between them and in doing so, she misplaces Born to Run (1975) and Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) in the same closed category, missing the closer thematic connection between the latter and The River (1980), which is placed in another ‘phase’. 2 Most critics have, for instance, trouble interpreting the ten-year ‘gap’ between Born in the USA (1985) and The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995). The chronologically intervening albums Tunnel of Love (1987), Human Touch (1992) 5 argue that there can only be made one key division into two parts: part one ranging from his debut in 1972 up until the 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad and part two starting with his 2001 record The Rising. The major turning point between these two phases seems to be an accumulation of both internal and external events occurring around the turn of the century, the most prominent being – internally – the reunion of Springsteen’s long-time friends and partners in the renowned E Street Band (after a ten year-long break) and – externally – the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which made as deep an impression on Springsteen, just as they did on most Americans. The main argument in favor of 9/11 as a defining moment is the sudden change of attitude towards the themes he had been treating for all those years. What had become a deeply rooted pessimism – with The Ghost of Tom Joad as climactic exponent – suddenly turns into a message of hope and optimism. The “Badlands”3 where dreams are inaccessible illusions, become a “Land of Hope and Dreams”4, where collective faith can ultimately lead to salvation. Another notable difference is that between the primarily negative view on religion in his twentieth-century work and its prominent positive presence in his 21st-century songs. Thirdly, whereas his earlier work focuses almost exclusively on the working-class people from his native New Jersey, the more recent songs have broadened their area of inspiration5. The ‘working-class hero’ has become an all-American poet deliberately choosing for eclecticism on various levels. Thematically, his recent work deals with people from all ranges of societal, ethnical or geographical background. But also musically, he has adopted other styles, going deeply into Negro spirituals and soul music, as well as adapting to contemporary musical innovations. This brings us to another problem that critics often face when discussing Springsteen, being the angle from which to approach his oeuvre: is it possible to deal with his songs solely on a literary level? The fact is that it is hard to talk about Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics without taking into account the music that supports them. Very often, the combination of the two is what really brings across the intended atmosphere – just as poets frequently depend on sounds to strengthen their message. The contrast between, on the one hand, the hopeful cheers on Born to Run and, on the other hand, the desperate cries on Nebraska, is also partially brought out by the contrasting musical styles – bombastic versus minimalistic. However, while the musical tone can sometimes be misleading (songs like “Working on the Highway” might come and Lucky Town (1992) are, thematically speaking, to be placed in an entirely different timeline. Ghost should consequently be seen as the true successor to the protest songs on Nebraska and Born in the USA. 3 From his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town. 4 Released in 2002 as a b-side to “The Rising”. 5 On The Ghost of Tom Joad, we can already perceive signs of this tendency towards a slightly broader subject matter (cf. CHAPTER 7). 6 across as cheerful, while its story is far from happy), the words never lie. But sometimes it is exactly this seemingly conflicting fusion between words and music that gives songs like “Born in the USA” their full strength. In this paper, I choose to focus on the messages that lie in these different songs, and the evolution that runs through them. In his own trademark style, using gently picked but usually highly intelligible phrases, Springsteen tells in each of his songs a short story – frequently (part of) someone’s life story – which always tries to grasp the very essence of this character in an average of about three hundred words, using first person narratives or anecdotes. They are short stories that, because of their rich imagery, could be adapted easily into feature length films – and some of them already have been. The problems mentioned above are only two of the many moot points that arise when trying to discuss the work of Bruce Springsteen (cf. CHAPTERS 1-2). Taking them all into account, I have tried to create a retrospective overview of the evolution that takes place in the twenty years between 1975 and 1995. This paper will, in other words, focus on the ‘first phase’ as described above. I have chosen to largely omit the first two albums (Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle) from my area of research, as well as the three albums that were released between 1987 and 1992 (Tunnel of Love, Human Touch and Lucky Town) – not because they are artistically irrelevant to his career, but because they are no substantive part of the evolution I will describe. The first two function as typical experiments, offering reflections of the life of a young artist in the growing music scene at the Jersey shore. The latter three, in their turn, mostly deal with the subject of love, and are deeply inspired by the events taking place in Springsteen’s own private life (from his divorce from his first wife to the marriage with his second). While chronologically, they of course have their respective places in between Born in the USA and The Ghost of Tom Joad, thematically they are nothing but a temporary break from the themes that pervade the majority of his work. As a result, this paper deals primarily with the work released on the remaining six albums. In the next chapters, I will describe the remarkable development in the way Springsteen tackles the myths of the American dream and the ‘upward mobility’ regarding blue collar America. On Born to Run (1975), the working-class youth is given a chance to escape: by means of a collective effort, one is said to be able to break out of the oppressive working-class surroundings. Even though the album – just like the other five – departs from the point of view that prolonging one’s stay in this environment is not an option, it offers a certain optimism that a concrete possibility of escape truly exists. This possibility fades away on the following albums Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980), where the 7 main undertone has shifted from optimism to nostalgia. The characters described here are mostly frustrated in their realization that the things they have always dreamed of will never come true. The escape offered here, is no longer a positive one, but rather an evasive solution: they lose themselves in regretful reveries. The cautious laments then turn to explicit rebellion and a flight into immorality. Feeling like their cruel background never gave them an honest chance, the characters end up losing themselves completely in criminality or despair. Their protest takes on two forms: the almost silent, but heart-rending howls on Nebraska (1982) and the loud charge on Born in the USA (1984). Finally, when it becomes obvious that no form of protest is ever going to change the situation of those poor people, Springsteen offers a final means of escape: death.