Transcript Slide 1

“American skin”:
Bruce Springsteen & the
Possibility of Politics
Roxanne Harde
Augustana Faculty
“Politics”
We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to
governments founded on force. But politics rests on necessary foundations,
and cannot be treated with levity. Republics abound in young civilians, who
believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and
modes of living, and employments of the population, that commerce,
education, and religion, may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though
it were absurd, may be imposed on a people, if only you can get sufficient
voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of
sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead
the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got
rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form
of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in
the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844
“We’ve been misled”
I always felt that the musician’s
job . . . was to provide an
alternative source of information,
a spiritual and social rallying
place, somewhere you went to
have a communal experience. I
tried to build a reputation for
thoughtfulness―that was the
main thing I was aiming for. I
took the songs, the issues, and the
people I was writing about
seriously.
Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone,
2004
“Growin’ Up”
I stood stone-like at midnight
suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was
just right and commanded the
night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed
by the rain and I walked on a
crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a
fallout zone and came out
with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of
the crowd but when they said
“Sit down” I stood up.
Ooh-ooh growin’ up.
Bruce Springsteen, Greetings
from Asbury Park, N. J., 1973
“Jungleland”
The Rat's own dream guns him down as
shots echo down them hallways in the night
No one watches when the ambulance pulls
away
Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light
Outside the street’s on fire in a real death
waltz
Between flesh and what’s fantasy and the
poets down here
Don’t write nothing at all, they just stand
back and let it all be
And in the quick of the night they reach for
their moment
And try to make an honest stand but they
wind up wounded, not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland
Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run, 1975
“Chords for Change”
A nation’s artists and
musicians have a particular
place in its social and
political life. Over the
years I’ve tried to think
long and hard about what it
means to be American:
about the distinctive
identity and position we
have in the world, and how
that position is best carried.
I’ve tried to write songs
that speak to our pride and
criticize our failures.
Bruce Springsteen, New
York Times, 2004
“Badlands”
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good
Workin' in the fields
till you get your back burned
Workin' 'neath the wheel
till you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts
learned real good right now
You better get it straight darling
Poor man wanna be rich,
rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
till he rules everything
I wanna go out tonight,
I wanna find out what I got
Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of
Town, 1978
“Darkness on the Edge of Town”
Some folks are born into a good life
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don’t seem to matter
much to me now
Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I
can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I
got
Lives on the line where dreams are
found and lost
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the
cost
For wanting things that can only be
found
In the darkness on the edge of town
Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the
Edge of Town, 1978
“The River”
I got a job working construction for the Johnstown
Company
But lately there ain’t been much work on account of
the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don’t remember
Mary acts like she don’t care
But I remember us riding in my brother’s car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I’d lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
Bruce Springsteen, The River, 1980
“Chords for Change”
Through my work, I’ve always tried to
ask hard questions. Why is it that the
wealthiest nation in the world finds it so
hard to keep its promise and faith with its
weakest citizens? Why do we continue to
find it so difficult to see beyond the veil
of race? How do we conduct ourselves
during difficult times without killing the
things we hold dear? Why does the
fulfillment of our promise as a people
always seem to be just within grasp yet
forever out of reach? . . . We ran record
deficits, while simultaneously cutting and
squeezing services like afterschool
programs. We granted tax cuts to the
richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs,
well-to-do guitar players), increasing the
division of wealth that threatens to
destroy our social contract with one
another and render mute the promise of
“one nation indivisible.”
Bruce Springsteen, New York Times, 2004
“Johnny 99”
Now judge judge I had debts no honest man could
pay
The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and they was
takin’ my house away
Now I ain’t sayin’ that makes me an innocent man
But it was more ‘n all this that put that gun in my
hand
Well your honor I do believe I’d be better off dead
And if you can take a man’s life for the thoughts
that’s in his head
Then won’t you sit back in that chair and think it
over judge one more time
And let ‘em shave off my hair and put me on that
execution line
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska, 1982
“Highway Patrolman”
Well Franky went in the army back in 1965 I got a farm deferment,
settled down, took Maria for my wife
But them wheat prices kept on droppin’ till it was like we were
gettin’ robbed
Franky came home in ‘68, and me, I took this job
Well the night was like any other, I got a call ‘bout quarter to nine
There was trouble in a roadhouse out on the Michigan line
There was a kid lyin’ on the floor lookin’ bad bleedin’ hard from
his head there was a girl cryin’ at a table and it was Frank, they
said
Well I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights
Well I must of done one hundred and ten through Michigan county
that night
It was out at the crossroads, down round Willow bank
Seen a Buick with Ohio plates behind the wheel was Frank
Well I chased him through them county roads till a sign said
Canadian border five miles from here
I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights
disappear
Yea we’re laughin’ and drinkin’ nothin’ feels better than blood on
blood
Takin’ turns dancin’ with Maria as the band played “Night of the
Johnstown Flood”
I catch him when he’s strayin’, teach him how to walk that line
Man turns his back on his family he ain’t no friend of mine
Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska, 1982
“Born in the U.S.A”
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
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”
I had a brother at Khe Sahn 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
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
Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., 1984
“The Ghost of Tom Joad”
Men walkin’ ‘long the railroad tracks
Goin’ someplace there’s no goin’ back
Highway patrol choppers comin’ up over the ridge
Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge
Shelter line stretchin’ round the corner
Welcome to the new world order
Families sleepin’ in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody’s kiddin’ nobody about where it goes
I’m sittin’ down here in the campfire light
Searchin’ for the ghost of Tom Joad
He pulls prayer book out of his sleeping bag
Preacher lights up a butt and takes a drag
Waitin’ for when the last shall be first and the first
shall be last
In a cardboard box ‘neath the underpass
Got a one-way ticket to the promised land
You got a hole in your belly and gun in your hand
Sleeping on a pillow of solid rock
Bathin’ in the city aqueduct
Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995
“Miserable Priests and Ordinary Cowards”
Politics exposes power and join questions about what is just and good to political
judgment and action. . . For the most part, we live under conditions in which exposure
of the sources and character of power and inequality fail to move us, in which
fundamental questions about justice and the good go unasked by most people, most of
the time, and in which the risk of political action is one that few people are prepared to
take. Contrary to our fondest democratic imaginings, politics is not what defines a
citizen in her daily practice; it is, instead, a burden that most citizens would rather
avoid. In many ways, this is what contemporary citizenship is: a license to abstain from
the burdens of political judgment and action. Politics—responding to the exposure of
power, joining questions about justice and the good to judgment and action—is
exceptional, disruptive, antagonistic, risky and dangerous. . . . politics arises to refuse
or contest the social, conventional and material inequalities that are institutionalized
over and against the incontestable equality that is otherwise basic to our humanity. It is
for this reason that politics is always threatening. Politics is not the realization of our
innermost essence, and it is not necessarily joyful, festive or fun; it is work, onerous,
dangerous work, work we would rather not have to do, but that we must do because we
are moved by a wrong that is intolerable.
Darin Barney, Topia, (2010)
“American Skin (41 Shots)”
Lena gets her son ready for school
She says “on these streets, Charles
You’ve got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you
Promise you’ll always be polite,
that you’ll never ever run away
Promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight”
Is it a gun, is it a knife
Is it a wallet, this is your life
It ain’t no secret
It ain’t no secret
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living
In your American skin
Bruce Springsteen, Live in New York City, 2001
“We’ve Been Misled”
I wanted to remain an independent voice for the audience that came
to my shows. We’ve tried to build up a lot of credibility over the
years, so that if we took a stand on something, people would receive
it with an open mind. . . . I always like being involved actively more
at a grass-roots level, to act as a partisan for a set of ideal: civil rights,
economic justice, a sane foreign policy, democracy. . . . So if I wrote,
say, “American Skin,” which was controversial, it couldn’t easily be
dismissed, because people had faith that I was a measured voice.
That’s been worth something, and it’s something I don’t want to lose.
. . . You’re asking for a broader, more complicated relationship with
the members of your audience than possibly you’ve had in the past. .
. . As an artists and a citizen, you’re gaining a chance to take part in
moving the country in the direction of its deepest ideals. Artists are
always speaking to people’s freedoms. The shout for freedom and its
implications was implicit in rock & roll from its inception. I knew
after we invaded Iraq that I was going to be involved in the election. .
. . I felt we had been misled. I felt [the government] had been
fundamentally dishonest and had frightened and manipulated the
American people into war. And as the saying goes, ‘The first casualty
of war is truth.’. . . I was going to lend my voice for a change in the
administration and a change in the direction of the country. Sitting on
the sidelines would be a betrayal of the ideas I’d written about for a
long time.
Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone, 2004
“Vote for Change”
I’ve spent 35 years writing about America and its people.
What does it mean to be an American? What are our
duties, our responsibilities, our reasonable expectations
when we live in a free society? I saw myself less as a
partisan for any particular political party, than as an
advocate for a set of ideas. Economic and social justice,
America as a positive influence around the world. Truth,
transparency and integrity in government. The right of
every American to a job, a living wage, to be educated in
a decent school, to a life filled with the dignity of work,
promise, and the sanctity of home. These are the things
that make a life, that build and define a society. These
are the things we think of on the deepest level, when we
refer to our freedoms. Today those freedoms have been
damaged, and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless,
reckless, and morally adrift administration. I spent most
of my life as a musician measuring the distance between
the American dream and American reality. For many
Americans who are today losing their jobs, their homes,
seeing their retirement funds disappear, who have no
health care, or who have been abandoned in our inner
cities, the distance between that dream and their reality
has never been greater or more painful.
Bruce Springsteen, Cleveland, November 2008
“The Ghost of Tom Joad”
The highway is alive tonight
But where it's headed everybody knows
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Waitin' on the ghost of Tom Joad
Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a
cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and
hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a
place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me.“
Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom
Joad, 1995
Works Cited
Barney, Darin. “Miserable Priests and Ordinary Cowards: On Being a Professor.” Topia 23-24 (2010): 381-87.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Politics.” 1844. Essays and English Traits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1909-1914. V: 75-87.
Guterman, Jimmy. Runaway American Dream: Listening to Bruce Springsteen. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2005
Springsteen, Bruce. Born in the U.S.A. Columbia Records, 1984. CD.
———. Born to Run. Columbia Records, 1975. CD.
———. Bruce Springsteen: VH1 Storytellers. Sony, 2005. DVD.
———. “Bruce’s Introduction at Peter Seeger’s 90th Birthday Concert.” Bruce Springsteen.Net. Web. 28 March 2011.
———. “Chords for Change.” New York Times 5 Aug. 2004. Nytimes.com. Web. 13 April 2010.
———. Darkness on the Edge of Town. Columbia Records, 1978. CD.
———. Devils and Dust. Columbia Records, 2005. CD/DVD/Print.
———. The Ghost of Tom Joad. Columbia Records, 1995. CD.
———. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Columbia Records, 1973. CD.
———. Human Touch. Columbia Records, 1992. CD.
———. Interview by Ted Koppel. Nightline. ABC. 30 July 2002. Television.
———. Live in New York City. Columbia Records, 2001. CD/DVD.
———. Lucky Town. Columbia Records, 1992. CD.
———. Magic. Columbia Records, 2007. CD.
———. Nebraska. Columbia Records, 1982. CD.
———. The Rising. Columbia Records, 2002. CD.
———. The River. Columbia Records, 1980. CD.
———. Tunnel of Love. Columbia Records, 1987. CD.
———. “Vote for Change.” 2 November 2008. Bruce Springsteen.Net. Web. 28 March 2011.
———. “We’ve Been Misled: Springsteen Talks about His Conscience, and the Nature of an Artist and His Audience.” Interview with
Jann S. Wenner. Rolling Stone 959 (14 Oct. 2004): 73-76.
———. The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. Columbia Records, 1973. CD.
———. Working on a Dream. Columbia Records, 2009. CD.
Tyrangiel, Josh. “Bruce Rising: An Intimate Look at How Springsteen Turned 9/11 into a Message of Hope.” Time 160.6 (5 August
2002): 52-59.
Election 2012
The Boss Wants You