The River (1980) contained Springsteen first Top 10 single (“Hungry Heart”) but was, among other things, a declaration of continued solidarity with the working class, most obviously via its title track, in which a construction worker hits a dead end in his life due to unemployment (“lately there ain’t been much work on account of the economy”). “Poor man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king/And a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything,” he sang in “Badlands.” Aha! When it comes to money, everything is relative. Yet Springsteen’s perspective was broadening, and he was no longer seeing the world as divided between haves and have-nots. The characters on Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) should certainly not be considered rich: in “Factory,” for instance, Springsteen practically wallows in working class drudgery. On a similar note, in the Born to Run (1975) mini-masterpiece “Meeting Across the River,” the singer fantasizes about making a big score in some kind of criminal enterprise, and imagines the moment when “I walk through that door” and “throw that money on the bed.” That will fix everything that is wrong in the relationship, he seems to think. In “Rosalita,” Rosalita’s father “knows that I don’t have any money” but, in the song’s climactic moment, the singer asserts that “the record company … just gave me a big advance” and so this is that father’s “last chance to get his daughter in a fine romance” with the soon-to-be-rich singer. If you’d like to write about others that fit this theme, please do so, in the Comments section, below.)īruce Springsteen’s 1975 album, “Born to Run.” I realize there are other relevant songs. (Note: This is not intended as a complete study of everything he’s written about money. I really believe that of all the major themes in his work, this is the one that has been written about - and noticed by fans - the least. So here’s a close look at the way he’s written about money at various stages of his career. But I’d like to make a point that may not be so obvious: Part of the reason his silence hurts so much, now, is because he’s talked so much about money, through his songs, throughout his career. That’s been done ad nauseam, by both fans and journalists (and I consider myself both). I’m not going to write about the prices themselves, and speculate on the reasons for them. And the only currently scheduled show in his home state - April 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark - goes on sale July 29. As of today (July 26), Bruce Springsteen has still not publicly commented on the extremely high ticket prices being charged by Ticketmaster for his upcoming tour, though his manager Jon Landau has. Springsteen wrote and performed it so perfectly, that I honestly couldn’t think of better lyrics or music to express that feeling of, yes, growing up.Īs for Born In The USA, today, I look back and realise I was just as dumb as those politicians who used that song for their political campaigns.Bruce Springsteen has stayed defiantly quiet about his current ticket-price controversy. The internal monologue tone of the lyrics ( Well I stood stone like at midnight/Suspended in my masquerade) helped me make sense of what was going on. It was a very confusing point in time and that’s why Growin’ Up was a song that spoke to me. Everyone I’d grown up with was changing: getting jobs, having kids, moving away, finding new friends etc. I’d just finished school and entered the workforce, which was completely different to the safe and sheltered environment of a classroom. The main reason why I love the song (beside the catchy music) is because when I heard the song I was growing up… that sounds really corny, but it’s true. It became one of my favourite songs right then and there. It started with a simple, gentle piano riff and then busted out into this Dylan- like song. But once Blinded By The Light finished, the next track, Growin’ Up, began. It sounded nothing like the Mannfred Mann version. I bought the album as soon as I could but didn’t like Springsteen’s original version. I looked up the song on Wikipedia and found out it was a Springsteen song, from his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. I liked it so much that I’d sing the words Blinded by the light at random times, which probably annoyed people. Strangely enough, every time I was on the cleaning shift, around exactly the same time, Mannfred Mann’s version of Blinded By The Light came on. I got a job working at a bakery that always had Gold 104.3 in the background. It put me off listening to Springsteen again.Ī few years passed, I left school. When I was about 16 I heard Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A song and didn’t like it.
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