Born in the U.S.A.: The Protest Song America Misheard

Bruce Springsteen set out to sing for the little guy. Instead, his biggest hit became an anthem for the Man.

This post is by contributor Jacob Bielecki. Jacob also has a new piece in Queer Majority about the unbelievable life and career of unsung pro wrestling trailblazer Chris Colt. Read it here.

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Upon its release in 1984, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. became a cultural phenomenon. The album marked a turning point in Springsteen’s career. He went from a rock star with a dedicated following and a few hits to a global icon. The record produced seven Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and cemented Springsteen as a pop star on the level of Phil Collins and Michael Jackson. Music videos for singles like “Dancing in the Dark” and “Glory Days” were in heavy rotation on MTV. Born in the USA seemed like a radical departure for Springsteen, who, in prior albums, addressed subjects that affected his predominantly blue-collar fan base. On the surface, it’s a masterfully crafted synthesizer-driven pop rock album intended to bring Bruce Springsteen to a worldwide audience. The album accomplished that and then some. But underneath its slick production, Born in the U.S.A. revealed the deep, lurking bitterness in America’s working class in the early 1980s while also shedding light on the changes in Springsteen’s own life.

Born in the U.S.A. was Bruce Springsteen’s stand against Ronald Reagan’s presidency and the conservative “trickle-down” economic policies his administration pursued. In hindsight, the album and subsequent tour might be the most prominent anti-Reagan protest ever staged. The title song and “My Hometown” bookend the album, which explores how the Vietnam War was the opening salvo on America’s working-class communities by big business and the government. Unfortunately, nobody got the message, and we can see the ripple effects of that today, making Springsteen’s opus one of enduring and unfortunate relevance.

Fittingly, “Born in the U.S.A.” is the album’s opening track. It’s a bombastic pop song with prominent synths and Max Weinberg’s powerful drums beating at the heart of it. Springsteen shouts one of his simpler choruses, “Born in the U.S.A.!” at the top of his lungs. The song sounds like a nationalistic anthem when in reality it’s a biting critique of the United States’ war in Vietnam and treatment of its own citizens. The verses tell the story of a Vietnam veteran from a hard-scrabble blue-collar community. The song’s narrator hints that he got in trouble with the law and was sent to fight in Vietnam to avoid prison. He recounts coming home to a community facing an economic downturn as the refinery he expected to work at is no longer hiring and his pleas for assistance are ignored by the Veterans Administration (today known as Veterans Affairs).

Before 1980, Bruce Springsteen’s audience largely consisted of white males from blue-collar communities, which were ravaged by deindustrialization as Springsteen’s career rose. In September 1977, 5,000 workers lost their jobs when the Campbell Works steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio shut down. 310,000 autoworkers, 33 percent of the industry’s workforce, were jobless after the Recession of 1980. By the early ‘80s, 150,000 steel workers in Pittsburgh, a Springsteen stronghold, had been laid off as the mills, which were the lifeblood of dozens of communities, shut down. Overall, 7.5 million manufacturing jobs were lost after 1980.

These men working in factories came from a proud lineage. They put the world on wheels and helped win two World Wars. Their communities shared a part of that prosperity for only a generation. Now they were being left behind. “Born in the U.S.A.” ends with the narrator reminiscing about his friend who was killed in the Battle of Khe Sanh and how his sacrifice was for nothing as the Vietcong won the battle anyway. The song concludes with the protagonist revealing he’s serving 10 years in prison for an unnamed crime.

Springsteen himself did not serve in Vietnam. In his autobiography, Born to Run (2016), he revealed that on his bus trip to the draft board, he and everyone else tried to come up with an excuse to avoid being sent to war. He ended up failing his physical because of a concussion he suffered in a motorcycle crash two years earlier. To further ensure he’d never be drafted, he acted erratically when he appeared before the draft board. Springsteen had never “been there”, but he was deeply troubled by and sympathetic to the plight of Vietnam veterans. In his memoir, he wrote that he often wonders about the man who was sent in his place and what fate befell him. Two of his close friends were also killed in the war. One was Bart Hanes, the drummer in Springsteen’s first band. According to Springsteen, Hanes told him didn’t even know where Vietnam was when he enlisted in the Marines.

US troops during the Vietnam war.

“My Hometown” is another of the album’s tracks about America’s inner turmoil. Like many of the songs in Born in the U.S.A., it’s backed by a synthesizer riff. The subject is Freehold, New Jersey, Springsteen’s hometown, and one whose story is emblematic of virtually every American industrial town in the mid-to-late 20th century. The lyrics start out deceptively optimistic as the protagonist describes fond childhood memories about growing up in his hometown and the sense of pride instilled in him from his father. But the song quickly takes a dark turn as the narrator describes how the town was torn apart by race riots when he was a teenager in the mid-’60s and the hopelessness he felt at being powerless to stop them.

A real-life incident that took place in Freehold is recalled in these verses as the protagonist sings about how a white man fired a shotgun into a car with several black youths inside. In the next verse, we learn that the town’s textile mill, its economic lifeblood, has shut down permanently, causing all the other businesses in town to close and its once-proud citizens to flee. The song ends with the narrator contemplating leaving with his wife and son to go down south. But before they do, he puts his son in the passenger seat of his Buick to show him his hometown, just like his own father did. This time, though, he shows his son his hometown not with a sense of pride, but in mournful lamentation at his inability to provide the same quality of life that he had at the same age.

As Springsteen toured the country during the late-1970s and early-‘80s, he saw firsthand how deindustrialization decimated the communities he was performing for. The men from these communities believed in the American Dream and the promise that a hard day’s work would be rewarded with a decent life. It was true to some extent in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Springsteen himself believed in this social contract, saying in the book Bruce Springsteen Talking (2004), “I don’t think the American Dream was that everyone was going to make it or that everyone was going to make a billion dollars, but it was that everyone was going to have an opportunity and the chance to live a life with some decency and a chance for some self-respect.”

The Vietnam War and the economic downturn that befell these blue-collar cities shattered that belief. It caused American men, especially Vietnam veterans, to lose faith in themselves. Springsteen’s lyrics insightfully show how these men had become alienated from every institution in their lives — government, corporations, their communities, and even their own families. When Springsteen shouts “Born in the U.S.A.!” he’s vicariously shouting for the men who are still patriots at heart and who believe in the promise of America, but no longer trust those in charge to deliver on that promise.

Born in the U.S.A.’s other songs, however, strike a quite different note. “Dancing in the Dark”, “Glory Days”, “Darlington County”, “Working on the Highway, “Cover Me”, and “I’m Goin’ Down” are pop songs crafted to have the broadest appeal possible. “Dancing in the Dark”, the album’s first single, was the last song written for the album. Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, told him that the album lacked a lead single that could promote it in the month before its release. Springsteen, who had written more than 50 songs over the previous three years, was annoyed with Landau’s request to write another song on such short notice. But he rose to the challenge and penned “Dancing in the Dark” in one night, a song fittingly about the frustrations of having to deliver a hit record.

“Dancing in the Dark” was an immediate hit. It was a top five-hit in multiple countries and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the highest-charting single of Springsteen’s career. The music video for “Dancing in the Dark”, a favorite on MTV, was directed by Brian De Palma, best known to that point for his films Carrie (1976). Blow Out (1981), and Scarface (1983). Springsteen does not play his Telecaster guitar in the video, allowing him to interact with the audience and to show off his new muscular physique.

Up to this stage in his career, Springsteen was scrawny, sporting clothing and hairstyles that, at times, seemed more folk artist than pop star. During the Born to Run era in the mid-to-late 1970s, Springsteen had a scraggly beard and wore shabby clothing. He eventually euthanized his beard and discovered a comb, but he wasn’t exactly a fashion icon. That changed with the “Dancing in the Dark” music video, which established Springsteen as not only a pop star, but a sex symbol as well. During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, he always made sure to wear sleeveless shirts to show off his biceps, and often wore denim vests and jeans onstage. At the end of the video, Springsteen pulls a 20-year-old actress named Courtney Cox out of the crowd and dances with her, something he’s occasionally emulated with fans when performing the song in concert.

Springsteen in the 1970s (pictured left) and during the Born in the U.S.A. Tour (right).

“Glory Days” is an upbeat song about people who peaked in high school. Springsteen wrote it after recalling a conversation with his old Little League teammate, Joe DePugh, at a New Jersey bar in 1973. The two had drifted apart after their youth baseball years as their interests diverged. Springsteen became more interested in music, while DePugh unsuccessfully tried to become a Major League Baseball player. The two men reminisced about old times until the bar closed, and much of the lyrics were taken from what Springsteen could remember from their conversation. The “Glory Days” video also received heavy airplay on MTV. The video features Springsteen portraying the character from the song, a former star high school baseball player now working in construction, interspersed with clips of Springsteen and the E Street Band (his primary backing band) jamming in a bar.

Two of Born in the U.S.A.’s songs address Bruce Springsteen’s youth and the changing dynamics of the E Street Band. “No Surrender” is about his time playing in bands with his friends in New Jersey and how the power of rock music united them. Springsteen nearly left the song off the album, but included it after E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt implored him to keep it. Although Springsteen performed “No Surrender” on the Born in the U.S.A. Tour as an acoustic ballad, he gradually stopped performing the song altogether for the same reasons he wanted to cut it from the album, later saying, “It was a song I was uncomfortable with. You don’t hold out and triumph all the time in life. You compromise, you suffer defeat; you slip into life’s gray areas.”

“Bobby Jean” is the album’s most personal song, widely assumed by fans to be about Springsteen and Van Zandt’s relationship. Much like the characters in the song, Springsteen and Van Zandt were boyhood friends. They played in various bands around New Jersey, and after some time apart, Van Zandt joined the E Street Band late into the Born to Run (1975) sessions. With the exception of Nebraska (1982), Van Zandt would co-produce all of Springsteen’s albums alongside Springsteen and Jon Landau. Van Zandt acted as an advisor during this period, although Springsteen always had the final say. Bruce Springsteen is known as “the Boss” for a reason, after all. However, after the bulk of the Born in the U.S.A. sessions had been completed, in 1982, Van Zandt left the band over creative differences and did not contribute to the last songs recorded for the album, like “Dancing in the Dark.”

Springsteen recruited Nils Lofgren to fill Van Zandt’s spot in the E Street Band just before the Born in the U.S.A. Tour commenced. Another last-minute addition was the singer and guitarist Patti Scialfa. Springsteen met Scialfa, a fellow Garden Stater, at a New Jersey bar and brought her into the fold because he felt the band needed a backing vocalist. The two would later marry in 1991.

Seven of the 12 songs from the Born in the U.S.A. album were released as singles and all seven became massive global hits. Born in the U.S.A. has sold over 30 million copies worldwide — and 17 million in the United States alone — making it one of best-selling records of all time. More than 40 years later, the album continues to sell thousands of copies per week. The mix of rockabilly influence and ‘80s synthesizer-driven pop songs struck a chord in a way that surpassed everyone’s expectations.

Springsteen had spent the previous decade establishing a reputation as a critically acclaimed songwriter and built one of the most dedicated fan bases in music with his intense live performances. He was famous, but true superstardom eluded him. Bruce Springsteen was never meant to become a global icon — his window had long passed. Yet he became one in 1984 when he was 35 years old, an age at which most pop stars’ careers begin to fade. The 1980s was a decade when older-than-average artists reached their commercial peak. Phil Collins and Huey Lewis were in their 30s and Tina Turner was in her mid-40s. The Born in the U.S.A. Tour brought Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band to an audience beyond North America and Europe as they toured in Australia and Japan for the first time in their careers. They sold 3.9 million tickets in the tour, and in Australia, Europe, Canada, and the United States, played to stadiums of up to 40,000–90,000 people.

Yet for all its commercial success, Springsteen’s songs about the economic decline facing many Americans fell on deaf ears in the US. By 1984, the recession of the early 1980s was over. Most Americans, who increasingly lived in or around urban areas, had forgotten about their small-town working-class brethren who’d been left behind. It was “Morning in America”, and as such, the album’s title song was infamously misinterpreted by listeners, the media, and politicians alike. President Ronald Reagan praised Springsteen in a speech during his re-election campaign, saying: “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.”

The press was skeptical of Reagan’s knowledge of the social messages behind Springsteen’s music, and asked if he knew any of Springsteen’s songs beyond his biggest hits. When a spokesman for the president said Reagan’s favorite Springsteen song was “Born to Run”, previously his most recognizable hit, it as much as confirmed this line of thought. But President Reagan wasn’t alone. The misinterpretation of Born in the U.S.A. continues with politicians to this day, as it remains a mainstay of many candidates’ campaign rally playlists.

Protesters in 1982.

Conservative America’s attempt to claim the left-liberal Springsteen as one of their own irked him. On September 21st, 1984, two days after President Reagan praised him, the Boss addressed a sold-out crowd at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, a city facing the kind of turmoil Springsteen had been singing about:

“The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta’ been. I don’t think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he’s been listening to this one.”

Springsteen then played “Johnny 99”, a song from his album Nebraska (1982) about a recently laid off New Jersey auto worker who kills a store clerk after a night of heavy drinking. In an interview with Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder, Springsteen said Reagan was using him to manipulate the American people into feeling good about their country so he could further his re-election. However, in the same interview, Springsteen refused to endorse Reagan’s Democratic opponent Walter Mondale. He said he felt disaffected with electoral politics in general — his primary focus was trying to bring people together through the power of music. When Loder asked Springsteen about Reagan, he had this to say:

“Well, I don’t know him. But I think he presents a very mythic, very seductive image, and it’s an image that people want to believe in. I think there’s always been a nostalgia for a mythical America, for some period in the past when everything was just right. And I think the president is the embodiment of that for a lot of people. He has a very mythical presidency. I don’t know if he’s a bad man. But I think there’s a large group of people in this country whose dreams don’t mean that much to him, that just get indiscriminately swept aside. I guess my view of America is of a real big-hearted country, real compassionate. But the difficult thing out there right now is that the social consciousness that was a part of the ‘60s has become, like, old-fashioned or something. You go out, you get your job, and you try to make as much money as you can and have a good time on the weekend. And that’s considered okay.”

It’s eerie how much has changed in the 40 years since, and yet how much remains the same.

The message behind Born in the U.S.A.’s somber tracks were lost not only on politicians, but on the American public as well. Perhaps the album’s songs were too catchy, too easily snackable as pure music for many to truly listen to the lyrics. Or perhaps the ability of music to transform the world has always been rather poetically inflated. Either way, Ronald Reagan won the 1984 election in a historic landslide. He secured 49 out of 50 states, earning over 54 million votes — a record that stood until 2004.

Springsteen must have been wondering if his new audience understood his songs beyond the choruses. He addressed the misconception surrounding the title track in a 1995 concert:

“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.”

The pervasive misinterpretation of his album somewhat soured Springsteen on the title track, and in the decades since, he’s rarely performed “Born in the U.S.A.” on tour. When he does, it’s almost always an acoustic performance, free of any synthesized bombast that might distract from the lyrics.

Bruce Springsteen wanted his audience, many of whom were affected by their communities’ economic decline, to be outraged by what was happening in the United States. But many of these audience members just listened to the choruses and voted for Reagan, the man whose policies Springsteen’s music was an indictment of. It would be the first time, but not the last, that Springsteen found himself disconnected from his audience’s politics. In the decades since Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen has become an outspoken Democrat. He endorsed Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Campaign and performed at his inauguration. Springsteen subsequently endorsed Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden during their White House runs. However, during Donald Trump’s first term, Springsteen conceded that much of his fan base had cast their ballots for him.

In his book, Songs (2003), Springsteen wrote that Born in the U.S.A. “contains a group of songs about which I've always had some ambivalence.” This is completely understandable — unlike Springsteen’s previous works, Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), The River (1980), and Nebraska, Born in the U.S.A lacks a unifying theme. The album was created not merely to tell a story, but to generate as many hits as possible, and it wildly succeeded in this regard.

After many years avoiding Born in the U.S.A.’s tracks in concert, Springsteen, beginning with The Rising tour in 2002, gradually began to re-embrace some of the songs. Springsteen stripped away the songs’ synthesizer groove and now performs them with a guitar-driven sound. This reinterpretation of songs like “Dancing in the Dark” only reinforces that Springsteen, in addition to being one of the finest lyricists of his generation, was also one of its greatest pop songwriters as well. “Dancing in the Dark” sounds phenomenal regardless of how it’s performed, whether in its original synthesizer form, as a pure rock song, or in solo performances with just Springsteen and an acoustic guitar.

“Glory Days”, “Darlington County”, and “Working on the Highway” are among the other Born in the U.S.A. songs Springsteen began to perform regularly. “Bobby Jean” was the only song on the album that remained a semi-consistent concert staple during the period when Springsteen distanced himself from Born in the U.S.A. To this day, the song remains a moving experience for his audience, knowing the history of Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Van Zandt’s 60-year friendship.

As Springsteen entered his 60s, he added another song from Born in the U.S.A. to his regular setlist — “No Surrender”, the same track he nearly left off the album because its optimistic tone clashed with his pessimism. Live performances of “No Surrender” have grown more proudly defiant as Springsteen has aged. During his 2023–2024 world tour, Springsteen always opened with “No Surrender” or played it within the first few songs. I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band twice on this tour in 2023, first in Detroit on March 29th, 2023 and again in New Jersey on September 1st. “No Surrender” put a bolt of cathartic energy into the crowd as soon as Springsteen strummed the opening chords, performing through a peptic ulcer.

When future historians tell the cultural history of the United States, Bruce Springsteen will be someone to whom they look as one of the definitive chroniclers of American culture. He’s seen America at its best and at its most hopeless, its bravest and its ugliest. Born in the U.S.A. was released at a time when all these qualities were on display for the world to see. The album was — and remains — misunderstood by many of the same people who fail to grasp the working-class struggles it was meant to voice. Had America heeded Bruce Springsteen, his most successful music would be far less relevant today. But some lessons are long in the learning, no matter how electrifying they sound.

See also: “The Terminator at 40: How Arnold Schwarzenegger Became an Icon”

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