Born to Be a Folk Hero

I haven’t written about my boy Bruce in months, an egregious oversight. So here’s a nice piece on him from, of course, the Belfast Telegraph.

The Boss: Born to Be a Folk Hero
by Jane Graham

More than 30 years have passed since Rolling Stone's star writer Jon Landau abandoned journalism to manage a new singer-songwriter, so convinced was he that, in his now legendary words, he had "seen the future and its name was Bruce Springsteen".

Since then, the singer's career has been crowded out with moments of equally mythical status, making his one of the most compelling tales in the long history of rock music.

In the last few years his work has taken yet another fascinating turn, momentous in both artistic and political terms, and yet again his live shows are attracting a buzz unlike any of his peers'. Quite a feat for a man nearing his sixties but in pop-cultural terms, this man is a true one-off.

Springsteen's journey from America's favourite blue-collar rock 'n' roller to, more recently, the artist who has split US opinion more than any other is an illuminating one and says much about his continuing
relevance.

Perhaps the most fascinating element of the story is that few saw it coming. When Springsteen became the undisputed king of stadium rock in 1984 with the anthem Born in the USA his place as one of the continent's most revered music icons seemed assured. The Boss had conquered America and, as it tends to do with its big hitters, America embraced him, holding him up as a standard bearer for the American dream. Who would have thought that two decades on the same guy would be passionately vilified by the right-wing community who once hailed him as their own?

'Disgrace', 'dirtbag' and 'floating fag' are just some of the epithets that have been thrown at the singer in the last five years.

For those paying attention, however, there were early clues that Springsteen's Godlike status among the distracted masses may not last. The most obvious clue lay in the vast chasm between the average American's understanding of the lyrics of Born in the USA (the chorus was catchy, easy to sing along to, and sounded like a proud statement of national identity), and the actual meaning of the words (a bitter attack upon the hypocrisy and inhumane behaviour of said nation towards its Vietnam vets).

One can only imagine what Springsteen made of Ronald Reagan's words during his Presidential campaign in 1984: "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts; it rests in the message of hope in songs 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." Never in the field of rock'n'roll have so many been so deluded by their own selective hearing.

Since that incredible gaffe, there has been a slow, growing awareness of Springsteen's liberal credentials - hugely disappointing for some of his mid-1980s fanbase - but few would have predicted just how extreme the pro- and anti- camps would have become by the new century.

The singer's swing from national hero to a love/hate figure is much to do with the unapologetic stance he has adopted on public, contentious issues, but it also pays tribute to the continuing power of his work because, ultimately, it's the songs that have p**sed people off.

Springsteen has always engaged with progressive politics with a small 'p', but since 2000 he seems to have decided to make more overt his dissatisfaction with the world's - and most particularly the US's - ills. In the years following Born in the USA, he was more inclined to write the kind of odes to smalltown loves and loss that first attracted Jon Landau (like Tunnel Of Love, 1987), his forays into political ommentary indirect, through portraits and pictures (The Ghost of Tom Joad, 1995).

But in 2000 he wrote American Skin, a mournful critique of the killing of African immigrant and New York resident Amadou Diallo, who died in a hail of 41 bullets by local police after a 'misunderstanding' about Diallo's intentions.

"You can get killed just for living in your American skin.
41 shots.
41 shots.
41 shots," Springsteen sang, outraging police organisations in New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and sections of the media.

New York's State Fraternal Order of Police, Bob Lucente, promptly bestowed the 'floating fag' tag upon the singer when he performed the song live in Atlanta.

After the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, the world waited for a response from the American artistic community. Bruce Springsteen stepped up, first opening the Tribute To Heroes fundraising concert in New York less than a month after the event, then releasing the first significant post 9/11 album, The Rising. At first glance it looked like the horror of the Twin Towers attacks had shocked the usually complex Springsteen into offering himself up as a poster-boy for all-American
sentimentality, and there are tracks on the album that do tread a mawkish, predictable line.

However, there is also Paradise, an unsettlingly non-judgmental ballad which imagines the last thoughts of a suicide bomber. It enraged one American reviewer so much he declared: "You could find no more direct example of the wickedness of liberal multiculturalism and moral equivalence".

For, many however, The Rising was bold, beautiful, truthful and an enlightening investigation into the heart of the human soul - in short, a return to the greatest of form. On a roll, Springsteen won a Grammy for his follow up, Devils & Dust, and continued to court political controversy.

Since 2002 he has been highly involved in a number of high-profile campaigns, including World Hunger Year and Vote for Change (which included solo sets at democratic candidate John Kerry's rallies). He also performed in New Orleans in April of this year, where he criticised the "criminal ineptitude" of local and national governments.

This year has also seen the release of one of Springsteen's best received albums for a decade (it went straight to No 1 in the US charts and to No 2 in the UK charts). The Seeger Sessions is a joyful, thrilling collection of traditional Americana, recorded and performed in single takes, with no rehearsals or overdubs, in the spirit of the great American folk icon Pete Seeger (and strongly reminiscent of Dylan's legendary Basement Tapes).

And though the songs themselves, only some actually written by Seeger, are steeped in time and place, the link between Springsteen's version of the protest song We Shall Overcome and his current feelings about his home country is clear.

Unlike Dylan, who long ago ducked out from political responsibility, Springsteen is strong and willing enough to carry the necessary weight on his shoulders. For this he should be celebrated and endlessly encouraged.

He has become a giant amongst his contemporaries, more relevant today than he has perhaps ever been, with no signs of going soft on us or looking to pass on the baton.

This boy was born to run. And run. And run.

Comments

[Ed]

Ah the Boss....the older I get, the more I like him! I so second the motion to name him a folk hero.