In1984 Bruce Springsteen’s vibrant musical masterpiece – the album Born in the U.S.A. – helped to reinforce his status as an American hero. It boasted a seemingly hugely patriotic title track and a cover that many mistakenly interpreted as an exercise in flagwaving patriotism.
Rather than tub-thumping about being an American, the US musician had decided he had to protest about what the then-US government under President Reagan was doing. Many listeners took the song’s chorus to be a celebration of being American – misinterpreting it as almost a musical love letter to the US – while missing the point that the track was a critical viewpoint of the then-US government. Reagan himself also missed the point and incorrectly thought the song was a ‘message of hope.’
However, Springsteen had written Born in the U.S.A. from a place of discontent. He was upset about the issues that the US’s Vietnam veterans encountered when they returned home after serving their country. Lyrics like ‘Got in a little hometown jam/ So they put a rifle in my hand/ Sent me off to a foreign land/ To go and kill the yellow man’ clearly indicate a degree of realism and cynicism about the US soldiers sent to fight in the Vietnam War.
The cover of the Born in the U.S.A. single featured Bruce Springsteen jumpin
