Posted on 08/27/2015 1:36:34 PM PDT by the scotsman
'Observing the 40th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” the Atlantic published, in tribute, a masterpiece of point-missing, reframing the album as a story of inequality and “urgent activism.”
Coincidentally, these are the exact obsessions of Ph.D.-holding 2015 elites who are a foreign nation to Springsteen’s shabby village of broken heroes and Magic Rats.
The Atlantic piece by academic Joshua Zeitz tries to shove Springsteen’s lyrics into a predetermined mold as awkwardly as Cinderella’s stepsisters trying to jam their large, nasty feet into that tiny slipper.
Zeitz, a college history teacher, expends several paragraphs praising subjects the album doesn’t even hint at — labor movements, strikes and a failed candidate for the presidency of the United Steelworkers (Ed Sadlowski) who is supposedly relevant to the album because his political coalition resembled the E Street Band.
The piece’s subheadline makes the strange claim that the album is about “the tense, political, working-class rejection of an increasingly unequal society,” as though Springsteen’s hustler poets were worried about what the effective tax rates of hedge fund managers might be 40 years later. Zeitz also tags Springsteen’s crew as suffering from “dislocation.”
No. The album is almost the opposite of what Zeitz says it is: It’s a celebration, not a rejection. It’s a barbaric yawp. It’s a blaze in the dark, a cry of pride amid desolation.'
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
All I know is that Springsteen’s croaking voice and overwrought orchestration music are pedestrian to the point of being almost unlistenable.
Not to mention he is an Obama supporting major liberal.
All I know is when I hear Loose Greenbeans I am suddenly thrown back decades and memories stream into my head like no other music I know or have known.
Springsteen was actually a musical genius up until the release of this album, his best IMO; after that he got famous, became an ‘activist’, and the rest of the story you already know. Now? He sucks.
I didn’t like him until a saw a show in 1974 at the Carlton Theater in Red Bank. I ended up jumping up and down on my seat - a life changing show. I know all the places that inspired his images. They are home to me. Born to Run was over-produced, and obsessed over, but they knew what they were making was historic. The images still give me goose bumps. It was all downhill for Bruce after that. Just the beginning for Miami Steve.
Springsteen went downhill after this album...and continues to live on the reputation he earned prior to Born To Run. He became a crony socialist/communist.
“Rosalita” (live) was his best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYHGh6lmSbo
Of course, a song is more than just the lyrics, and we aren't supposed to talk about sincerity in art, but if you just look at the words on the page, it's hard to take it seriously as anything more than a guy striking poses and having fun with words.
Elites conjure up their own meanings in everything just for the hell of it-I like Springsteen’s pre-megastar music. I hear the love of thrills and youthful angst in “Born to Run”-not any different from most other rock music-past or present-just something we can all relate to, but I’d hardly call it anything as deep as “urgent activism”...
This. Well said. Possibly the 20th Century’s most overrated musician.
I saw this guy in '77 and that show still remains the best I've ever seen.
Fast forward nearly 40 years and the same guy's long winded self aggrandizing rambling screed at the recent R&R Hall of Fame awards put me to sleep
I’ve always been a gearhead-dated and married guys who were, too-so the song has that headrush from the sound of the engine and the speed to my ears, and I like it...
Springsteen was a significant player in my journey from stupid teen to conservative adult.
I bought in to all the hype about him and his "Born in the U.S.A." album and song of the same name. I kept listening to it. It kept bothering me. And bothering me. Until one day, I said, this prick lives here and makes his money off the very people he detests. Screw him. The album went into the trash.
For all the reasons to bash Springsteen, the Born to Run album still gives me goosebumps and I honestly believe he and the E Street Band were somehow tapping straight into the divine source when they made it. It’s a majestic and soaring masterpiece.
It sucked then. It sucks even more now.
L
this is amazing.
thank you so much for posting
The dude is horrible. Just horrible.
I got family in red bank...
Great place, even the middletown clown brings back memories
It seems to be made out like everyone from NJ has to like Springsteen. I don’t. One time my roommate’s sister was over at the house and they were talking about getting tickets for a Springsteen show at the Arts Center. I was asked if I wanted to go and I quickly said no. Perplexed, my roommate’s sister asked why not, and I simply answered, “Overrated Communist. No, Thanks”.
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