Last year about this time, a friend of mine told me about how he was prepared to go to war against the DJ playing tunes for his neighborhood's Fourth of July celebration. The DJ had played Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA," at the celebration the last few years prior, but for this particular celebration, my friend said had had enough. If the DJ was going to play the song again, my friend was ready to lay into him about how he had obviously never listened to the words to this song, because if he had, he would know it wasn't a patriotic song celebrating America, but a "song about how America was a piece of shit." (Those might not have been the exact words, but they were words to that effect.) Luckily, the neighborhood association intervened, and the song was not played.
Was my friend right? Is "Born in the USA" a protest song? Is it critical of America, so much that it ought not to be played during the celebration of our nation's birth? On one level, of course he's right. Although many listeners have--perhaps hearing only the chorus and the jubilant guitar refrain--misinterpreted it as a straightforward celebration of pride in being an American, that's not at all what the song is about. It's a song about a Vietnam veteran, returned from war, now finding no work and no future. He is musing about the friends he lost in Vietnam, the pointlessness of military action there, and perhaps the failure of the American dream, at least for him. "I was born in the USA," he thinks, but what has that done for me?
If it's not a patriotic song, it's certainly been misunderstood as one. A lot. President Ronald Reagan praised the song, apparently thinking, as many of my friends did when I was eleven, that the song was really nothing more than someone shouting out that he was born here because he's just so gosh darn proud of that fact. I'm sure it's played at 4th of July celebrations all over America, and while people who've actually listened to the verses might raise an eyebrow, they probably get why it's being played. Springsteen himself has joked that he was glad people misunderstood the song, because it helped make him rich. But he's also played alternate versions of the song that remove the triumphant guitar motif of that even take away the chorus, focusing instead only on the story of the veteran and his trials.
What I'm not saying
One could make the classic argument that because protest is American, a protest song is therefore patriotic, because it's respecting the American right to protest. I think that's a valid argument 364 days a year, and certainly my friend wouldn't argue that Springsteen shouldn't have the right to sing this song. I'm not even sure my friend thinks it's a bad song, only that it's not appropriate for a Fourth of July celebration. Let's say I agree with him. Criticism can, of course, be not only consistent with patriotism, but an outright patriotic duty. Springsteen apparently wrote the song after interacting with Vietnam veterans' groups, who very much faced situations like the ones described in the song when they came back from the war. In 1984, many of them were still struggling to put their lives together. Of course, Springsteen should write a song about that. But it's legitimate to ask if the one time a year we're supposed to celebrate the country is the right time to play it for large audiences. The Fourth of July is perhaps the last public celebration we have in which we jointly express our common heritage as fellow citizens. So perhaps it matters how we express ourselves at these celebrations.
Instead, I'm saying this...
So I'm not arguing that protest songs or songs that call attention to flaws in society are inherently "patriotic," at least in a way that makes the fit for the Fourth of July. Patriotism, or love for one's country, is something I think I'm inherently suspicious of. It's in the same intellectual neighborhood as nationalism or provincialism. If it's better than those, it's in the sense that a healthy patriotism will remind us that we have a duty to the society we live in. As fiercely individualistic as our society is, we cannot ignore the welfare of our country without all of us suffering. We all have a duty to work for the common good of all. A good patriotic song, the kind that ought to be played on the Fourth of July, will strengthen that sense.
And here, I think the masses might have the right instinct when they think of the song as patriotic. No matter how much people might ignore the lyrics, I doubt most people are unaware that the song's first words are "Born down in a dead man's town/the first step I took was when I hit the ground." So they at least know it's a song about someone who's been through the school of hard knocks. And I think this is part of the appeal the song has for them. For most Americans, achievement of the American Dream is a little bit elusive. We are all subject to macroeconomic and macropolitical ebbs and flows over which we have no control. When "Born in the USA" came out in 1984, my family was always worried that the steel company my father worked for might lay him off. If it had, my life would have been very different. We've had recessions and pandemics and wars. All of these have affected some people in ways that derailed their dreams and their connection to society.
And yet, most people are still proud of being American in some way. I think that the persona of the song is, too. The textual evidence from the melody and the chorus, which is belted out with so much gusto, is a little too strong to be overruled by the harsh realities of the verses. In a sense, the persona of the song is saying, "I've been through some serious shit as a result of where I'm from, but it's also made me who I am, and so I claim that as my own. I belong to it and it belongs to me."
It's not unlike the spirit of a lot of rap songs that both criticize black urban life but also can be sentimental or strangely proud of the realities of that life, because it's what has made the rapper who they are. There are a million songs in this vein, but Nas's "Memory Lane" comes to mind as one good example. To use a lesser-known but more local (to me) example, Tate Kobang is a Baltimore rapper who never pulls punches when describing life in Baltimore, but who also gushes with love for the city. None of these rappers pulls punches when describing the life they grew up with, but they also freely express love for home. They are fiercely "patriotic" about their hometowns.
That's what "Born in the USA" is. It's a patriotic song for the rest of us, the ones for whom the American Dream is not working out like we'd hoped. As the guy who just moved back in with his parents when his start-up folded during COVID restrictions looks around on the 4th, he might see people for whom the American Dream is working, and he might feel like America isn't for him. He might hear a more unproblematically patriotic song, like Lee Greenwood's "Proud to Be an American," and wonder why everyone seems to be ecstatic about the American experience except him. "Born in the USA" is for him. Whatever Springsteen might have intended, the audience gets a vote about what songs mean, too. Audiences have heard a song about a man for whom being an American did not mean a life of privileges, but he still seems to enthusiastically claim his heritage as an American. They have responded to it. They have felt unexpected joy in the song and in their country. They have felt themselves awakened to the promise of America even while hearing of its failure. They have even felt "patriotism," by which I mean they have a sense that they owe something to America. They, like I, hear the song and perhaps think that if it came to it, they'd be willing to die for this leaky, jury-rigged, held-together-by-duct tape of a republic.
If most people, or even some people, react to the song in the same way, then it's probably worthy of being played as background to some burgers and beers and fireworks once a year.
