The Location of Religion in Bruce Springsteen's

HENRY JANSEN THE LOCATION OF RELIGION IN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S WRECKING BALL Common Ground Prior to “Religious’ and “Secular”?1 Introduction Bruce Springsteen’s music is filled with religious language and imagery, principally Christian and/or Catholic in origin, although lately some Buddhist imagery can be detected as well. Springsteen himself has indicated that religion is at the root of his music. In a 1984 interview he said about his first album Born to Run: “there’s that searchin’ thing; that record to me is like religiously based, in a funny kind of way.… That searchin’, and faith, and the idea of hope.”2 The presence of this language and imagery has, of course, led to a great deal of discussion on what the language actually means or signifies in his music. Some commentators have a tendency to claim Springsteen and his music for their religion. The most famous example of this is Andrew Greeley in a 1988 article called “The Catholic Imagination of Bruce Spring- steen” (Greely 1988). More recently, Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz’ The Gospel Ac- cording to Bruce Springsteen reads like a list of sermon illustrations drawn from Springsteen’s music (Symynkywicz 2008). Even more recently, a review in Christianity Today of Wrecking Ball claims that Springsteen’s “work is characterized by a buoyant hope that can only be seen as rooted in the person of Jesus Christ” (Whitman 2012). The writer of this review, Alan Whitman, finds that Springsteen has more to say to him than any other songwriter, even though he finds this “curious” because “Springsteen does not claim to be a Christian” (Whitman 2012).3 Still others, like Kate McCarthy, see Springsteen as positing an alternative vision (McCarthy 2011: 20-40) or even, like Matthew Orel, a secular morality (Orel 2012: 150). 1 I would like to thank Henk Vroom, Tracy Ann Essoglou and Lucy Jansen for their helpful comments and corrections, and those who attended my session at the ESITIS conference in Bilbao. 2 Cited in, among others, Masur 2009: 115. We will present the full quote below. 3 For a Christian critique of even posing this question see Keuss 2012. 73 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 23 (2013) 1 The question such speculation raises is: Are such discussions warranted? Or is there something more basic, more fundamental going on in Springsteen’s music? Springsteen’s use of religious music is significant for the very fact that he appeals to a wide audience, a secularized audience, and even more precisely, a disenfranchised secularized audience. His use of religious language and imagery is not necessarily Christian. But neither is it completely secular. In this article I would like to explore Springsteen’s use of religious imagery and language by looking at the “place” of space and place itself in his music. I will argue that Springsteen’s use of religious language and imagery forces the (Christian) listener to re-evaluate his or her own understanding of that religious language and imagery, seeing new connections and new understandings in his or her own appropriation of that religious language. I will do this by looking at three songs on his latest album, two of which belong to the album proper and the last was included as a bonus track: “Rocky Ground,” “Land of Hope and Dreams,” and “Swallowed Up (In the Belly of the Whale).” While religious language and imagery are present in the other songs on this album, they are much more dominant in these songs. My discussion here will involve two different aspects of place and space in these songs. I will begin by looking at the religious imagery in these songs, par- ticularly the imagery that relates to place, for place is important in Springsteen, and concentrating on this will help to focus the discussion. Then I will explore the larger sense of place in these songs, specifically looking at the album and concerts as, to use Henri Lefebvre’s term, “representational spaces” (Lefebvre 1991: 39; Knott 2005: 39). I will then take up the question of the sense in which we can talk of Springsteen and religion, here utilizing insights gained from narrative theory. Religious Imagery and Place in Wrecking Ball Place is important in Springsteen’s music. One might even say that place and space are foundational for many of his songs involve a journey from one place to another. Such places and journeys can be found throughout his whole career, whether we are talking about “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road,” “Badlands,” “Downbound Train,” or “The Rising.” This sense of journey is very much present in the three songs we will look at here. In each of these songs—and in the album as a whole—what is emphasized is the lack of place, as the locator, anchor, and indicator of “belonging” and the displacement of the people involved. In each case they are involved in a journey some kind: a journey to Canaan over rocky ground, on a train to the land of hope and dreams, on a boat trip that ends in their being swallowed up. They can be unemployed people looking for a new job, new hope, tramps who live lives defined by journeys, (illegal) immigrants, or others. In any event, they are, as Tracy Ann Essoglou likes to say, “un-situated.” They are moving from the situation of slavery, the threat that is behind them, hopelessness, to a new existence, a new land, a land 74 THE LOCATION OF RELIGION IN SPRINGSTEEN’S WRECKING BALL of hope and dreams. They, Springsteen’s characters, and possibly we, as audience, are displaced people, and the importance of place is emphasized by the lack of any specific place as a named geographical location either with respect to the place they start or the place they end. The place they start from, the place in the beginning, is always a place the people in the songs need to get away from. Sometimes, in earlier songs, this place is more often experienced as a place of losers, and in later songs often as places of oppression, psychological or otherwise. Although it could be said that Springsteen’s sense of these places has deepened and matured over the years, it cannot be claimed that his earlier songs were simply examples of typical pubescent rebellion. They show a consistent depth that goes beyond much contemporary music. Although the places sometimes refer to real existing sites, most of the time the place is usually fictitious, and no further specifi- cation is given. At first glance, the starting place in each song is clear, without identifying that place in specific detail. That place is assumed. In all three of the songs the journey has already started. There are hints, however, as to what this “place” might be. The first verse does speak of the “flock” that “has roamed far from the hill” and “Jesus said the money changers, in this temple will not stand.” The “hill” suggests the “city on the hill” and the American dream, and “money changers” makes us think not only of the money changers in the temples whose tables Jesus overturned but also the modern “money changers” on Wall Street and in the banking industry who are widely held culpable for the current financial crisis. The “flock” thus suggests the victims of the financial crisis, those who have not been taken care of, those who have seen death brought to their hometown. The video of “Rocky Ground” shows images of urban and suburban areas, fences, dilapidated buildings, empty streets, people walking slowly. The last shot is one of people walking toward the sun. All of the scenes are in black and white, with only one colour shot of pigeons flying to a building during one time the chorus is being sung. This places the listeners and audience of Wrecking Ball in any town in middle class (North) America: those who have been the victims in the financial crisis.4 “Swallowed Up” is even vaguer about the starting place. The traveller in this song falls asleep on “a dark and starlit sea / With nothing but the cloak of God’s mercy over me.” More specific indications of the place where he or the they of this song begin are lacking, and we are finally left with only the 4 This theme is a recurring one in Springsteen. In fact, most of his songs are about the victims and unsung heros of a financial system that has systematically left people displaced and out of place. My thanks to Tracy Ann Essoglou for reminding me of this point. 75 STUDIES IN INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE 23 (2013) 1 context of the album to give us a sense of the starting place. Those who have been swallowed up like Jonah in the belly of the whale are the flock of “Rocky Ground,” again, those who have seen death brought to their hometown, those who have not been taken care of, the workers who turn into jacks of all trades to try to keep their heads above water in the current economic crisis. In “Land of Hope and Dreams,” a sense of a starting place is virtually absent. Again, it is only indirectly that the song addresses any kind of context. Because the people are now on a journey to the “land of hope and dreams,” one could conclude that this starting place is the same as that in the other two songs: the place of oppression that they are now fleeing. In light of the above, the destination also seems clear. Both “Rocky Ground” and “Land of Hope and Dreams” do talk about a destination.

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