Bruce Springsteen was wrong
Looking back on “The River” in light of Trump 2.0
Something Bruce Springsteen and I have in common, besides being wordy New Jerseyans desperate for attention, is an obsession with the idea of America. It turns out we are clueless.
In a video endorsing Kamala Harris for president Springsteen said, “The common values, the shared stories that make us a great and united nation, are waiting to be rediscovered and retold again.” They’ll have to wait longer.
“Donald Trump does not understand this country, its history, or what it means to be deeply American,” Springsteen said at a recent campaign rally. That’s debatable now.
“Like you, I’ve had to live through the election campaign,” Springsteen said at a 2016 concert that I attended. “It’s been one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” I should have shouted, “Strap in, Bruce!”
Springsteen did get one thing right. “When you let out all that ugliness, the genie doesn’t go back into the bottle.”
After a third presidential election featuring Trump and his second win, homophobia and transphobia and racism and misogyny and insurrection are now treated like the annoying traits of a good buddy—they rummage through the pantry, turn on the TV, and wink at us as they kick their feet up on our coffee tables. Oh, him? That’s just Donald.
In the Trump era a chasm has formed between the America that is and the America in Springsteen’s mind, which is relevant because few artists have shaped the idea of the country more than Springsteen, especially as it relates to the almighty and immaculate God to which we kneel: the white working class.
“For 30 years Springsteen has been writing and singing songs about ordinary people struggling through life on the hard side of the American dream,” wrote journalist Nicholas Dawidoff in 1997. That line could be forklifted into almost any piece about Springsteen, in any decade. A sampling:
“The Pop Populist,” New York Times Magazine, 1997
“Bruce Springsteen, ‘The Ties That Bind,’ the working class, and authenticity,” PopMatters, 2016
“Darkness on the Edge of Town: Bruce Springsteen and the white working class,” The Stanford Daily, 2017
“Bruce Springsteen Admits He Made Up the ‘American Working Class’ During a Creative Dry Spell,” The Hard Times, 2021
The last one is satirical, but it could have been describing The River.
The River is a lot of things. Released in October 1980, it is the last bit of pop music before Reaganism. At 20 songs, it is sprawling. It is Springsteen’s most underrated album. It is the epicenter of heartland rock. And it is Springsteen at his most white working class-iest. A Springsteen standard, the title song tells the tale of a construction worker out of a job.
Then I got Mary pregnant
And man, that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday
I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
And the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle
No flowers, no wedding dress
It’s a savage story, and it would lean into caricature if it wasn’t true—it’s about Springsteen’s sister and her husband, which indicates Springsteen’s superpowers. He is intensely empathetic, and he is one of the best songwriters ever. That combination makes the songs resonate, and his 1980s output focused on the working class is what created “Bruce Springsteen.” Another thing him and I have in common is an allergy to work—the extent of Springsteen’s manual labor is his tarring a roof as a kid one summer so he could buy a guitar; mine is building a poker table in high school so I could host parties—yet he was able to write “The River” and I am able to relate to it. I almost want to be an unemployed laborer in a failing marriage when I hear it.
That was before this week’s election. Now, it comes off as an anthem for whiny men. Of course, Springsteen meant to imply how social and political systems had let non-rich people slip through the cracks. But it can be read in today’s political environment as a screed against those very systems, against the people who at once prop them up and try to make them better. How could you let this happen to me? The macro forces Springsteen elicits aren’t misfortunes of class, which are addressable by collective action. Instead, they’re viewed as attacks on personal identity, slights that must be individually avenged.
I don’t subscribe to this reading, but Trump’s victory is disorienting because of how I consider myself and the world.
I once participated in a leadership development program for people in urban communities. I was one of the few white people in the cohort. In an intense exercise, the group discussed the impact and significance of ethnic identity, and at one point I said that, above all, I identify most with being American. I was born here, I have no connection to the foreign lands from which my ancestors came, I served in the Navy, and so on. I offended many in the group.
I was and am secure in that sentiment, but it made me conscious that my presence alone affected others in the room, and my claiming the space was perceived as hostile. My whiteness and my maleness is not a trophy or something deserving of one. It’s not even mine. It’s relative and relational, and because I’m not an amoral asshole I felt terrible about making people feel uncomfortable or even threatened by how I presented myself. That moment taught me how to better channel my American-ness. I am not lesser, and neither would this country, for being compassionate.
Springsteen explores similar terrain through song, and it’s one of the unifying themes of his catalog. Rock music, like America, is a big tent. We’re all different, but we’re all invited. That was the thrust of his endorsement of Harris:
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are committed to a vision of this country that respects and includes everyone, regardless of class, religion, race, your political point of view or sexual identity, and they want to grow our economy in a way that benefits all, not just a few like me on top. That’s the vision of America I’ve been consistently writing about for 55 years.
I emphasized the last sentence because America resoundingly rejected that vision this week. This is to say Springsteen’s (and my) worldview and our conception of the country was rejected. I’ve since been processing many competing emotions, which models The River. About marriage, there’s “I Wanna Marry You,” but also “Hungry Heart.” About personal freedom, there’s “The Ties That Bind,” but also “Independence Day.” About good times, there’s “Cadillac Ranch,” and about bad there’s “Wreck on the Highway.”
I’m sure the paradoxes were placed on the album intentionally, representing the conflicting and varying emotions of life. Bruce interprets that as our search for meaning and connection and our moving together toward our better angels, to use one of his favorite terms.
Right now, all those songs, all those emotions, are scattered on the floor, an incoherent pile. I am trying to make sense of it, and a post hoc analysis of the race isn’t going to make me feel better. Anyone who purports to know “the problem” with Harris or Democrats or the key to the white working class is a snake oil salesman. But then, we’ve elected one, twice.
Right now, Bruce can’t claim to know America anymore than I can. I take meetings and type things for a living. I had to recently Google “P-Trap” after my building’s maintenance worker told me how he fixed my sink. All I know is I want a more humane way of life in the U.S. and that I feel like shit that that appears unlikely soon. One day, though, we who care about people that we don’t know are going to be scrutinized ad nauseam so our needs and wants can be fulfilled. Until then, I’ll be listening to Bruce Springsteen.
Mister I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land
Nicely done! I am here for any Bruce argument where River is the problem and Darkness is the answer.