There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” and the End of the Heartland

The 1984 album Born in the USA cemented Bruce Springsteen’s reputation for drawing listeners from across the political divide, according to this boisterous account from music critic Hyden (Long Road). Recalling how he first heard the album as a six-year-old in his father’s car—“All these years later, I am still chasing the rush”—Hyden traces some of Springsteen’s musical influences (Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan) before situating him alongside John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, and other contemporaries whose songs centered working-class protagonists. According to Hyden, Born in the USA straddled “a hard-hat, working-class conservatism” and an idealism “born out of the civil rights and anti-war movement of the sixties.” That combination garnered Springsteen fans on both the right and the left, Hyden writes, noting that the title track, a song about the disillusionment of a Vietnam war veteran, was co-opted by Reagan-era conservatives as a patriotic anthem. Balancing a fan’s enthusiasm with a critic’s attention to detail, Hyden sheds light on Springsteen’s legacy and the political moment that allowed him to occupy the cultural “center of American life.” Fans of the Boss will want to add this to their bookshelves. (May)