Reborn in the U.S.A.
by J. Daniel Janzen

It's too bad about the cover photograph on Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. Viewed with an open mind, the shot — the back of a man's midsection, facing a field of red strips — could suggest any number of things, from a patriot admiring the Stars and Stripes to a dissident taking a leak on it (what exactly is that right hand doing, anyway?) to perhaps the most likely version: a troubled American contemplating his flag and the things it stands for, and wondering how the nation and its people measured up at the midpoint of the Reagan years.  

This food for thought went largely untasted, though, as few people got beyond the seemingly black-and-white iconography of blue jeans and white T-shirt, and the seemingly jingoistic title. None other than the Great Communicator himself wrapped himself in Springsteen's banner, citing the hit title song as an anthem for all Americans to embrace — never mind the lyrics, which portray a down-and-out Vietnam vet, bitter, confused and abandoned by his government. The Boss did what he could to correct the Gipper's gaffe, but the impression stuck.  

Two decades later, give or take a lifetime, Springsteen takes a more direct approach to political discourse. An outspoken critic of the debacle in New Orleans and a vocal backer of Democratic candidates, he has risked (but escaped) a Dixie Chick-like backlash in leaving no doubt about his sympathies. Now, with We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, the Boss pays tribute to one of the great lefty rabble-rousers of American history. In a sense, it's a cover album twice over: while these songs are closely associated with Pete Seeger, none were actually written by him, instead being drawn from the deep folk tradition mined by Seeger and his fellow travelers. And this is as it should be; Seeger himself is a firm believer that the songs themselves are what matter, not the songwriter. There's no individual glory to be sought. We're all just messengers carrying news to lift the spirit of the broken and strike fear in the hearts of the high and mighty.  

Which is not to suggest that these songs are only suitable for picket lines and Molotov cocktail bars. Fist-shakers like "Pay Me My Money Down" and "We Shall Overcome" appear alongside "Froggy Went a-Courtin'," "Erie Canal" and other Seeger sing-alongs loved by generations of children. "Shenandoah," with one of the most timelessly beautiful melodies in all-American music, skips the politics to praise the land itself. "John Henry," "Old Dan Tucker" and "Jesse James" celebrate larger-than-life heroes and villains unconstrained by the institutions of their time.  

Springsteen's passion for the material is expressed in part through the vitality of the arrangements, which transcend the preservationist instinct that can render so many folk revivals inert and amber-cast. Rich instrumentation and barrelhouse vocals drive each song deep into the listener's brain and heart in a manner familiar to any survivor of one of Springsteen's marathon concerts. The cover may say Seeger and the credits may say Traditional, but make no mistake: Springsteen has made these songs his own.  

A quarter-century ago, the first folk singer to come to most people's minds might have been Bob Dylan, while Springsteen was just another bar-brawling Jersey boy. But even then, Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" days were long behind him as he delved into more personal literary and existential explorations. And even then, those willing to look more carefully for signs of Springsteen's depths could find them in "The River," and follow their further development on the haunting album Nebraska, inspired by the infamous killing spree of Charlie Starkweather, and subsequently, "The Ghost of Tom Joad." For that matter, were all those Springsteen songs about girls, cars and Saturday night any less relevant to American folkways than Dylan's riverboat gamblers and gypsy queens?  

The irony of his nickname notwithstanding, the Boss has always belonged to the common man (and his girlfriend), singing of and to the working class without a trace of condescension. If he romanticizes the struggle, he has never glossed over the pain, nor denied the reality that redemption doesn't always arrive — there are "debts no honest man can pay," and sometimes the little guy just loses. For those of privilege and luck, "Born in the U.S.A." has the ring of a boast or a battle cry; for others less fortunate, it could be a curse or a bitter complaint: I didn't ask for it, and it hasn't done me a bit of good anyway. The American Dream remains just that; there's a good reason it's not called the American Promise. And so, day after day, we just keep punching the clock, counting on beer, bar bands and backseat love to dull the pain, and holding fast to a handful of heroes to keep our spirits up.  

The cover of Born in the U.S.A. might have thrown a few people off, and attracted more than a few of the "wrong" kind of fans — not that there's anything wrong with liking hard-rocking songs like "Glory Days" — but in the dying days of another two-term disaster, the long perspective makes it clear that this is where Springsteen was headed all along. The Seeger Sessions comes straight from the soul, with no time for pandering to rock radio or tiptoeing along political fences.  

America is lucky to have so thoughtful a patriot.

— J. Daniel Janzen (dan at clownyard dot com)