The Meaning Behind “Born in the U.S.A”
Bruce Springsteen, a fellow New Jersian is known as a rock icon who has sold more than 100 million records in his career. He is best known for his famous album “Born to Run” and his hit single “Born in the USA.”
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Whenever we attend Independence day parades or other festivities celebrating our freedom as Americans , we tend to hear the song “Born in the USA” by Bruce. At first glance, it appears to be a song which is thought to make people proud of our country and recognize the privilege we are given to be born in America. Although the irony of this, is that “Born in the USA” is actually a protest song regarding the awful way in which we treat our country’s veterans.
This song was recorded right after the Vietnam war by Bruce in 1982. It was meant to rally against the damage the war had done to our country and the way in which we were mistreating our veterans who were in need of help after serving us. Although this message was extremely misunderstood, while this song was supposed to be a slap in the face to politicians, the song had the exact opposite effect. Many of the politicians which Bruce was rallying against, ended up misunderstanding the song and using it in the background of their campaigns. One of these politicians included Ronald Reagan, which was the leading cause for many of Bruce’s tracks. Reagan mentioned the song in a campaign speech in 1984, "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire, New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about.”
If you look at the lyrics to the song, you can see it is about a man who has just returned home from war, and in fact it is not a patriotic song. The following verse describes a man who has just returned home from war and is trying to get his old job back.
[Verse 3]
Come back home to the refinery Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me" Went down to see my V.A. man He said "Son, don't you understand"
[Verse 4] I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong They're still there, he's all gone He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms now [Verse 5] Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I'm ten years burning down the road Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
Although, the chorus of the song is what really caused this misinterpretation.
[Chorus] Born in the U.S.A I was born in the U.S.A
"In my songs, the spiritual part, the hope part, is in the choruses. The blues and your daily realities are in the details of the verses” Bruce explained in a 2005 interview with Terry Gross.
Although, shockingly, Springsteen was not too upset about the misinterpretation of his song. At a show of his in 1995 he yelled to the crowd and his fans "After it came out, I read all over the place that nobody knew what it was about, I'm sure that everybody here tonight understood it. If not — if there were any misunderstandings out there — my mother thanks you, my father thanks you and my children thank you, because I've learned that that's where the money is."
Over the years, Springsteen has played many different renditions of the song, and now enjoys changing it up at concerts. Springsteen played a show at the State Theater in my local town of New Brunswick in 1995, where he played an acoustic rendition of “Born in the USA.” Chris Christie, our former governor of New Jersey recalls sitting in the crowd and thinking it was a much different sound, he states, "I can remember, at the show I went to see at the State Theater in New Brunswick, N.J., a couple of people started to try to sing with him. And he stopped in midsong and said, 'I can handle this myself.' " Although he does continue to occasionally perform the original version.
In my eyes, I see “Born in the USA” as a song still relevant in our country’s society. We still face many political issues which many of us are ashamed would happen in the supposed “land of the free.” Although Springsteen's hit is still seen as iconic today, new artists seem to follow in his footsteps with a modern approach to protest songs. For example, Childish Gambino’s “This is America” which follows a similar theme using the chorus as a way to sarcastically say “this is America, the supposed land of the free”, and using the verses to emphasize the deeper issues, the same idea which Springsteen portrays in “Born in the USA.”
