Posted on 09/04/2025 2:32:09 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Honoring the Rust Belt’s greatest sellout — and elitist suck-up.
It was July 1984, a very late weeknight. My buddy Mike and I closed up Perkins Restaurant in Butler, Pennsylvania, and left about 1 a.m. with a six-pack of Budweiser pounders for the old Kaufman’s department store in downtown Pittsburgh. There we joined a long line of fellow 1980s degenerates sleeping out all night on the sidewalk in quest of coveted Bruce Springsteen concert tickets.
Perkins is a nice family restaurant chain. The restaurant where Mike and I worked — he as a junior manager and I as cook, dishwasher, and all-purpose grunt — flew a gigantic American flag on a high pole outside Clearview Mall. That flag always pleased patriotic Americans, of whom there were many in our hometown, including among classmates who had graduated from Butler High School the previous month.
My friends and I weren’t political or ideological. We loved our country but knew little about politics. I couldn’t define a Republican or a Democrat. Like almost everyone in America, however, we liked Ronald Reagan. Even Walter Cronkite had marveled about Reagan, “I never thought I’d see anyone that well-liked …. Nobody hates Reagan. It’s amazing.” That was evident when Reagan was reelected with nearly 60 percent of the vote, 49 of 50 states, and winning the Electoral College 525 to 13.
We patriotic teens also liked Bruce Springsteen. Already an established pop-rock star, he had just reexploded on the music scene with a smash album, Born in the U.S.A. The album cover and Bruce himself were bedecked in red, white, and blue. The stars and stripes were his theme. Old Glory was front and center for every performance during Springsteen’s enormously successful year-long-plus tour that hit major cities in America (Pittsburgh twice, both the Civic Arena and Three Rivers..)
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I no longer care for Springsteen. In the 1980’s I was a huge fan. Then he opened his mouth on politics. Yet, the author is a bit disingenuous. He writes
“The poor slob comes home from Vietnam to get a job, but he seems to be the only ambitious hardworking man in 1984 who can’t find a job at a time of booming economic growth under Ronald Reagan.”
Well, the poor slob in the song was probably looking for a job in the early 1970’s. In Dec 1970, unemployment climbed over 6 percent. It peaked at 10.6 percent in 1982 (I know, I was a recent graduate). I fell below 6 percent in 1987.
Then there was the oil embargo in 1973. Perhaps that’s why the hiring man at the refinery couldn’t help.
Not a fan of him, but the Vietnam lyrics ring true. Sounds like First Blood
I agree.
Saying Vietnam was a pointless war is ridiculous. Like saying Korea or WWII was pointless. In all three cases we fought a war to defend independent nations which were invaded by totalitarian militarists who denied those nations their right of existence.
What’s next protesting against police evicting squatters? Or illegal alien invaders.
The rot runs deep and wide.
He was pissing on the flag ...
His song on that album,”I’m on fire”...sounds like a creepy pedophile talking to a “little” girl...especially when he compares himself to her father....cuhreeepy.
Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian adventurer who did so much to open up southern Africa for agriculture and mineral extraction, once said, to an audience of compatriots in South Africa: “Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.” His sentiments have applied to Americans pretty much since its founding, when Washington, unlike Napoleon (who crowned himself king), bequeathed to his successors a functioning republic where extremes were moderated, and differences hashed out peacefully, even where a great deal of rancor materialized.
Nonetheless, angsty lyrics are normal in rock as they are in country songs, because pathos is something audiences seek out - a frisson of pain without having to experience the real thing. Most of the biggest hits relate to lost love and beaten down people. Self-satisfaction just doesn’t get the juices flowing. Whining does.
Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car is a classic. Completely atypical of the average American’s experience, but a good song, anyway.
You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we can make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
Me, myself, I got nothing to prove
You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
Won’t have to drive too far
Just ‘cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living
See, my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle, that’s the way it is
He say his body’s too old for working
His body’s too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
You got a fast car
We go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain’t got a job
And I work in the market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You’ll find work and I’ll get promoted
And we’ll move out of the shelter
Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
You got a fast car
I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do your kids
I’d always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me’d find it
I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving
So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, it felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder
And I-I had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
Luke Combs’s rendition
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr7oYjnt3bM&pp=ygUORmFzdCBjYXIgY292ZXI%3D
I wish this guy would just drop dead. Literally
His lyrics are vapid and his voice sucks.
I have despised his crappy music since the first time I heard it.
L
I'm no fan either, but given what we saw in Afghanistan in 2021, it's clear that he was right about that.
Fake farmer, tax evader, scumbag deluxe, and a terrible singer with a 400 acre estate which would be perfect for low income housing, except elite leftists never have to worry about state confiscation.
His countryside's burnin'
With wolfman fairies dressed in drag for homicide
He was certainly prescient there.
I thought it was a patriotic song because it was used as an entrance song by a babyface wrestler in the mid-80s. It was only later that I listened to the lyrics and figured out that the song and its performer were garbage.
Sh*tstain’s “singing” sounds like he’s been trying to make a bowel movement for the last 50+ years 🤦😖😖
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