Bruce Springsteen, Patriot

With the release of a new Bruce Springsteen album featuring references to “promises from sea to shining sea” and flags flying in the wind, we’re likely in for yet another round of the tiresome debate over whether Springsteen is “patriotic.”

Here’s how it goes: Conservatives hear lyrics mentioning a flag, get misty-eyed for Ronald Reagan’s Morning In America, and embrace it as a love-it-or-leave-it anthem to American greatness. That leads to well-meaning rejoinders from liberals that it isn’t really a “patriotic” song; it’s a song that criticizes America’s flaws. These responses have benefit of actually reflecting the substance of Springsteen’s lyrics, but they tend to unwittingly stipulate to the right’s shallow definition of patriotism. Then, once the critical verses are pointed out, you get a round of attacks from the Bill O’Reillys of the world that Springsteen is an unpatriotic America-hater because he talks about poor people and unnecessary wars. Like I said: Tiresome.

Patriotism does not mean never thinking your country is imperfect. If that’s what patriotism meant, nobody in the history of the world would ever have been patriotic. It would be a useless word. If it meant what conservatives who use the word to bludgeon their opponents pretend it means, they would be unpatriotic when they criticize “Obamacare,” environmental regulations, and the minimum wage. If it meant nothing more than flying a flag, being a patriot would be substantively indistinguishable from wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day.

Springsteen recognizes that patriotism demands a desire for a nation to live up to its ideals. Kicking off the 2004 Vote for Change tour in Philadelphia, he explained:

We remain a land of great progress. But it’s time, we need to move America towards the fulfillment of its promises that she’s made to her citizens: Economic justice, civil rights, protection of the environment, respect for others and humility in exercising our power at home and around the world. […] America is not always right. That’s a fairy tale you tell your children at night before they go to sleep. But America is always true. And it’s in seeking these truths that we find a deeper patriotism. Don’t settle for anything less.

When Bruce Springsteen sings about unemployed veterans whose country owes them more, or steelworkers cast aside by bosses who got rich on their labor, or a climate of mutual fear and distrust that leads to police shooting an unarmed man 41 times in a vestibule, he does so because he is a patriot: Because he loves his country -- its people and its ideals, not just its flag and its name.

UPDATE: Ann Powers at NPR and Chris Phillips at Backstreets have interesting assessments of “We Take Care Of Our Own,” the new album’s first single.

Comments

[Urban]

Ie2€™m On Fire does to Born in the USA what One Step Up does for Tunnel of Love, in both instances, the iartst reveals how vulnerable he is, almost confessional of his thoughts and fears. Both songs add a glow to these albums that add an element to the music that I find hauntingly beautiful. Obviously I would disagree with you only that I extend the Bruce cannon up to and including the Tunnel of Love album. While Darkness is my all time favorite, I do find his creative musings palatable through 1988, after that ite2€™s very noticeable he suffers from a decline in his creative prowess. Thate2€™s not a knock at him just my opinion, by in large his contribution to music is exceptional. BTW, enjoying Pink Floyd day here in NYC!

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