born in the u.s.a. poll

"Working on the Highway", partly because I haven't heard it 9,000 times.

While I love the rockers, "My Hometown" is the one that has stuck more than any other song here.

"I'm Goin' Down", for the wonderful guitar intro, the way the drums come in, the desperate vocal, and a lyric that is sadly too easy to relate to.

'i'm on fire'

This is between "I'm On Fire" and "Bobby Jean" for me.

"I'm on Fire" has gotta be the lurkers' favorite here, due to its being covered by a bunch of artists in indie rock circles in the past year or three. i personally don't give a fuck about Springsteen, didn't vote.

Another for I'm Going Down.

fuck indie covers (or Rubin-era Johnny Cash covers), it's just one of my favorite Springsteen singles ever.

what the hell, "I'm On Fire" is terrific and needs no indie exposure to dominate this poll. It's not my choice, but that's because I can only go with one. But I could have gone for any of these except "Cover Me", and even that's a great song.

Title track is one riff played over and over (when it devolves into gasps and yells it might as well be Suicide) paired with nightmarish lyrics about unemployment and vietnam. That Reagan tried to use it as his campaign theme song makes it even more amazing. I like a lot of these tracks but that song totally blows me away.

"I'm Goin' Down" down down down down. But the only song that isn't amazing is "No Surrender."

I love that three of the videos for this album are by John Sayles and another's by Brian DePalma.

I can't stand "Glory Days" for the same reason I hate "Jack And Diane." I don't want to hear a boomer sing about how they peaked in high school.

Latest rightwing fuckwit to appropriate Springsteen:

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/1595230343.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V49059063_.jpg

"i'm on fire" perennial favorite
but "i'm goin down" current favorite
the only one i don't like is "glory days"

"Dancing in the Dark"

People covered "I'm On Fire"? That strikes me as the least-coverable song on the record. And my favorite. It's one of the creepiest songs he ever did, and the arrangement is untouchable. I would actually use this song as one of the better examples of Max Weinberg's greatness.

It's pretty amazing that a song as bleak as "My Hometown" peaked at #6 – did radio think it was a sequel to Mellencamp's "Small Town"?

I'm On Fire covers: http://pentangle.net/blog/archives/158

I unironically prefer Max Weinberg in Conan O'Brien's ensemble, where at least he's collaborating with another worthwhile person, than wasting his talent with Springsteen.

That is amazing about "My Hometown". I wouldn't be surprised if it hit #6 after the announcement of the mega tour that year, which was an enormous deal on the rock radio I remember.

kids these days and their unironic appreciations

I'm On Fire is awesome, but this was one of the 1st ever albums I heard that I liked every track on it and not just the singles.

i didn't say appreciate, i said prefer, there's a difference xpost

"Dancing In The Dark" is one of my main musical memories of 1984.

"Downbound Train."

if Scott had included the Arthur Baker remix of "...Dark," I'd have voted for it.

i can't not vote for the title track, but "i'm on fire" is a close second. and almost every other song is a close third. (i don't get the hate for "glory days." apart from being catchy, it's as sad as almost anything else on the album. time slips away and leaves you with nothing but boring stories.)

(heard the bat for lashes cover of "i'm on fire" recently. pretty weak. and somehow "hey little boy is your mama home" doesn't really work.)

This album is like the first five songs of Check Your Head that my college roommate played over-and-over. I've heard all the hits, even the sub-top 20 songs like "I'm Going Down" and "Cover Me", so many times on the radio that I just can't listen to them anymore.

Hopefully by the year 2014, I'll be able to sit down and listen to this album again without thinking I've got Magic 105's all-Bruuuuuuuuce Weekend going on in my ears.

And I've always hated "Born in the USA", cool lyrics notwithstanding.

The title track would have been an easy pick for me had it not been played to death just about everywhere (including my living room).

I'm on Fire. Fucking love that song. Timeless, oughtta be a standard, one of the best pop songs of its era. Closest Springsteen ever came to actually being Johnny Cash.

Oddly, I've never heard anyone cover it (nor have I heard anything off this album more than once or twice in the last decade). I need to spend much more time listening to indie rock and Magic 105.

P.S. Extended "dance mix" of Dancing in the Dark.

6. "I'm on Fire" – 2:37
11. "Dancing in the Dark" – 4:00
1. "Born in the U.S.A." – 4:39
7. "No Surrender" – 4:00
12. "My Hometown" – 4:34
2. "Cover Me" – 3:27
4. "Working on the Highway" – 3:11
10. "Glory Days" – 4:15
3. "Darlington County" – 4:48
5. "Downbound Train" – 3:35
9. "I'm Goin' Down" – 3:29
8. "Bobby Jean" – 3:46

im going to vote for "dancing in the dark," though, because it seems like im on fire is going to walk away with this...

"its like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley in the middle of my skull"

the dusky organ fill after he says that line is the killer.

"Downbound Train."

-- JN$OT, Thursday, December 6, 2007 9:52 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

when i was a kid this song was so depressing to me

my first tape as a kid was kris kross and my second was this.

"Darlington County," followed by "I'm Going Down."

I used to love "Darlington County" back then, but I find it just too harmonically simple and repetitive now. "I'm On Fire" is too repetitive too, and goes nowhere musically, but I love more or less the rest of this album. "Downbound Train" being the grower besides "My Hometown".

B-b-but when it comes to harmonic repetition the title track on this is practically Steve Reich or something; it's strictly one chord and variations on a three-note melody!

The original title was "Song for Geir to Claim It Doesn't Have Enough Chords"

Best video: John Sayles's "Born in the USA." Song still sends shivers down my back.

totally dancing in the dark, but i'm on fire is pretty difficult to argue with too

Dancing in the Dark. Don't let associations with Courtney Cox spoil it for you.

"its like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley in the middle of my skull"

ok this is how i've always heard and thought of this line too. but it's apparently not so. which is dumb, because a.) soul doesn't rhyme with dull, and more to the point b.) a 6-inch valley in a soul doesn't make any sense, WHEREAS a 6-inch valley in the middle of yr skull sounds like really bad news.

My English teacher spent 30 minutes discussing the lyrics to "My Hometown" last year.

I've always heard it as both "skull" and "soul", depending, kind of like you can look at a 3-D drawing of a box and see it both ways. "Skull" is obviously way better and a greater truth, even if it doesn't say it on his website. If it really is just "soul" then Bruce is wrong.

I'm On Fire

he def sings it as 'skull'

what a great album

downbound train is so amazing

sometimes it is, that's true.

It almost always is. Not least because the term was invented by fans who are into unlistenable unmelodic "contemporary" crap. Generally, people who aren't at least 30 years old have a crap taste in music.

You cast a wide net

Not particularly upset because I've decided it's overplayed syrupy borderline-dadrock foo-faw for emo bozos who think the coolest answer to any problem is to run away from it

Except that most of the album's characters are trapped by their problems.

anyway, wow, no votes for "Cover Me"? The Arthur Baker remix is almost as great as "Dancing in the Dark"s.

On the Tunnel of Love Express, the song was still a regular, and it evoked reactions ranging from young female fans squealing in admiration to drunken males making too much noise and being castigated by The Boss.

It's pretty amazing that a song as bleak as "My Hometown" peaked at #6 – did radio think it was a sequel to Mellencamp's "Small Town"?

don't forget that:
a) the u.s. economy was really really bleak back then and normal people, the kind of people who listen to the radio, might well have thought the song was actually about them.
b) on the other hand, normal people don't generally think through every word of every song they hear on the radio. if they did, they might have thought twice about making a hit out of "born in the usa" (which is a lot darker than "my hometown") or "glory days" (whose basic message is that they're over). no, they tend to like songs that they can sing along to, that are pretty, or that they can dance to. i am one of those normal people.
c) bruce springsteen was very very very big in the mid-'80s. it probably hit #7 simply based on the fact that it was the new bruce springsteen single, and then rose one more spot because it was easy to hum along to.
d) it's a good fucking pop single. as was mellencamp's "small town."

e) also don't forget people like, say, a young tom delay, who latched onto this album because it had an american flag on the cover and had america-first and family-values-friendly titles like "born in the usa," "glory days," "my hometown," "no surrender" and "working on the highway." that really is enough for a lot of people.

i think "my hometown" had a lot of resonance. i was in hs then and instead of it seeming like a song about boring old grownups it seemed like a reflection of what we all knew was going on, either from headlines or from personal experiences of people's parents, relatives, etc. songs about losing the farm, factories closing, small towns dying, not to make too big a deal out of it but it seemed completely logical that would be on pop radio. (even bon jovi a few years later, "tommy used to work on the docks".) and yeah of course these were exceptions, most pop songs were not about economic dislocation. but the ones that were didn't feel out of place.

"My Hometown" appealed a lot to my 14 year-old self as a nice ballad. I didn't think much of the lyrics although I read them and probably connected them more with the song than I usually did with lyrics at the time.

my hometown is arguably the best song on the album. most of the better ones here got 2 votes or fewer.

on the other hand, normal people don't generally think through every word of every song they hear on the radio. if they did, they might have thought twice about making a hit out of "born in the usa" (which is a lot darker than "my hometown") or "glory days" (whose basic message is that they're over).

But "My Hometown" didn't have booming Max Weinberg drums, Bruce screaming, and that massive hook.

If you want to argue (and you do in your last point) that Bruce could have sung "Venus in Furs" in 1986 and made it a Top Ten hit, that's fine; and "My Hometown" is certainly of a piece with the Coog hits that charted around this time; but it's still pretty slow for a Top Ten, and the fact that it was the LAST of seven consecutive ones (i.e. radio wasn't tired of him yet) is pretty amazing.

"My Hometown" isn't "dark," huh

A Sides
"Born in the U.S.A." - ...
"My Hometown" - white flight+manufacturing death = 2 hankies
"Darlington County"/"Glory Days" - grand farce/good humor, pace xgau
"No Surrender" - little anthem about things the way they are and things that never were
"Dancing in the Dark" - greatest pop song ever about the second law of thermodynamics, though perhaps owing more than a little to Wilhelm Reich. Dire Straits synths obscure the lyrics more than average, though.
"Working on the Highway" - You Can't Catch Me

B Sides (alpha)
"Bobby Jean"
"Cover Me"
"Downbound Train"
"I'm Goin' Down"
"I'm on Fire"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5-IoEcolp8

listening to the "Glory Days" on the Born in the USA sessions bootleg, the version with the extra verse, and wow! it changes the whole song from the "grand face/good humor" reading given by gabbneb. Here's the verse (now the third verse):

"My old man worked twenty years on the line
and they let him go
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
they just tell him that he's too old
I was nine years old and he was working at the
Metuchen Ford plant assembly line
Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion Hall
but I can tell what's on his mind

Glory days yeah goin back
Glory days aw he ain't never had
Glory days, glory days"

Then it goes into the "now I think I'm going down to the well tonight" bridge, which sounds a lot more grim in light of the parallel with the narrator's father.

Also this is not going to blow your mind but it amazes me that the situation of factory workers hasn't really changed since 1984: and then I think ~big thoughts~ about late capitalism and fortunately Bruce then reminds me that his love will not let me down & I forget.

i didn't see this poll at the time. if i had, i'd have been vote no. 3 for downbound train.

my hometown should have gotten more votes imo

Here's the Bruce c90 I just made last night/this morning.
Side 1
1.Thunder Road (Live)
2.Badlands
3.Reason to Believe
4.Rosalita
5.Racing in the Street (Live)
6..Hungry Heart
7.I'm on Fire
8.State Trooper
9.Brilliant Disguise
10.Bobby Jean
Side Two
1.Tenth Ave Freeze Out
2.E-Street Shuffle
3.Darkness on the Edge of Town
4.I'm Goin Down
5.It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
6.You Can Look (but you better not touch)
7.Born To Run (Live)
8.Prove it All Night
9.This Land is Your Land (Live)
10.My Hometown
11.Streets of Fire
12.Used Cars
The live songs are from the box set, everything else is an lp cut.

Wish "I'm Goin' Down" got more votes/airplay. A top ten hit, etc, but I wonder if it even got much attention in 1985; it's the one BITUSA hit I don't remember hearing on the radio.

this is such a strange album

xpost I don't think "I'm Going Down" had a video, which probably cut into its pop cult status compared to the other songs that did, but I do remember hearing it on the radio.

strangely awesome

no video for i'm going down. none for cover me, either, and i think that was the first or second single.

Yeah, the second. Written for Donna Summer, but she rejected it in favor of "Protection."

love the arthur baker club mix of "cover me"

this is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=betZWo0gZrc

I wonder how impossibly exhausting the tour for this album was

Re: the "skull/soul" lyrics discussion upthread-- yeah, fuck what Bruce's site says. "Skull" corresponds with the "freight train" running through the middle of his head in the next couplet.

Lyric book in the live box has "skull."

mine has "freight train running through the middle of Old Skull"

gotta be skull

I hear skull too.

listening to various versions and there is a no-doubt-about-it 'k' in there

almost a shame this can't turn into a viking argument

i like the progression of obsessing about the little girl in i'm on fire and then actually kidnapping the little girl and ending up in jail and working on the highway. nice closure.

glory days indeed

still laughing at Old Skull

it's def. skull!

I've always taken the fact that he's referring to a six-inch valley as indicating that he's talking about his cock: that he feels he's been emasculated. Since no one brought it up I figure it's either obvious or bullshit. What do you think?

That's a fair reading, Euler, but for me it's always just been a really intense and awesome image. I mean, shit, who wants to have a dull knife cut a big ass hole in their head?

Then Play Long has finally reached this landmark album - http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/bruce-springsteen-born-in-usa.html

This really hits the spot today. For the first time ever, I was too disgusted to go out and celebrate the 4th in any fashion. I reluctantly got dressed and then said "fuck it and fuck everyone responsible for all the shit that went down yesterday" - cancelled all plans and just put on this record among others, but I'm playing this again for the third time. I know Bruce has been hard on this album - too hard IMHO - but I get where he's coming from when he credits the opening and closing numbers for making the album work. "Born in the USA" is mighty cathartic, building in frustration, and "My Hometown" grows more and more potent with each verse, with one of the most poignant endings to any rock n' roll song I can think of - not just an ending but the future many will now gradually bleed into.

would've voted "i'm going down"

maybe my favorite song that uses "that chord progression", the one that starts like pachabel's canon

"I'm Goin' Down" is one of my karaoke standbys.

YOU LET OUT ONE OF YOUR BORED SIGHS

the unwavering insistence in the way he repeats DOWN DOWN DOWN, so good.

Would have voted Bobby Jean

The only way you can effectively kill this fake neo-lib-hero piece of shit is by nuking the US imo

was that a bside?

i think it's gonna be on Tracks 3!

I had a similar experience to birdistheword; I was in England for the 4th, and trying not to even think about the holiday, but then I walked into a cafe and Born in the USA was playing, and it felt right - a patriotic song for people who are deeply angry with the US and how far it is from where it should be. I can't think of another song right now that quite captures that.