Recontextualizing “Born in the USA”

Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song “Born in the USA” is famous not only for having been incredibly popular, bit for being “misunderstood.” Springsteen’s intent, as is pretty clear by a straight reading of the lyrics, is to tell the tale not just of a Viet Nam vet (the US was barely a decade out from that expensive but successful war and incredibly unsuccessful peace), but of a nation in disrepair. But it was grabbed onto by the political right – such as President Ronald Reagan – as a a rah-rah USA USA USA song to rally around. Then as now, leftists explain this as Republicans & conservatives being “media illiterate” or simply dumb. But is that really the case? Consider my own experience.

When it came out I was a dumbass early teenager with no particular political leanings. Yet I also saw the song as pro-USA, and I loved the hell out of it. And, yes, I listened to and understood the lyrics, and saw the darkness therein. But I – and I suspect a whole lot of other people – simply interpreted them differently from the intention of Springsteen. yes, the lyrics reference the dire economic situation faced by *many* people at the time, coming out of the OPEC oil embargoes and Carters economic flailings and the collapse of the Apollo program and all the rest. But here’s the thing: two people can look at the same thing and see very different results… same screen, different movies.

Everybody in the US in the early 80’s knew that things sucked. You could hardly experience Carter and inflation and stagflation and Iran and the Soviets and the collapse of the iron, auto, farming and a bunch of other industries and not notice it. But there are two ways to deal with “things suck:” despair and determination. And thus we had two different approaches to understanding the song:

Leftists: “Things suck in the USA, therefore the USA sucks.”

Rightists: “Things suck in the USA right now. But we’ll fix it.”

In 1984, things sucked. But they didn’t suck quite as bad as they had a few years before, and things were clearly improving. Those in the middle and on the right saw this, and interpreted “Born in the USA” in that light.

And we got this for the 1984 Presidential campaign:

Essentially, “Born in the USA” was a negative ad against the US that got turned into a positive ad for the US. And that irritated the hell out of a lot of lefties who wanted to wallow in despair… and wanted everyone else to do the same.  Turning it into a nationalistic anthem was a giant middle finger to the nattering nabobs of negativity.

Positivity and optimism can do wonders in an election, and in society. “I Like Ike,” JFK’s “Camelot,” “Morning in America,” “Make America Great Again,” etc. Turning a negative into a positive is a sign you’re on the right road.