if you define conservatives in a way that means pining for a traditionalism that never existed, sure
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 14:52 (seven years ago) link
how do u figure? springsteen's music is as much or more about the tragedies of a supposed idyllic time than it is about celebrating it. unless that traditionalism means a time when guitar music reigned supreme.
― Mordy, Monday, 26 September 2016 14:54 (seven years ago) link
it depends what lens you use to look at it. if you think of blue collar, small town people who have been kicked around and screwed over, and this idea that there's some ideal working man's america out there... some sort of american greatness that's been bruised not by you or me but by the man
if you take that and remove all the trappings of social justice that Springsteen believes in, which you don't necessarily get from a surface reading, you end up with "america was great"
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 15:24 (seven years ago) link
This thread is spawning some candidates for OP's question on its own
― punksishippies, Monday, 26 September 2016 15:30 (seven years ago) link
Well, it's backwards looking musically. The review uses a quote from Springsteen on how he never wanted band democracy, and that's central as well. It's individualistic music, it's music for pulling yourself up by your boostraps, rather than of systemic oppression (or, as it's otherwise known: The real world). Bruce hasn't even gone through a self-negating phase like for instance Dylan, no, it's his band that he keeps breaking up and getting back together. The leader stays, the collective is rearranged. And while he has tried to broaden it, the central individual in the Springsteen mythos remains the great white male.
Conservative music can be good, though. I really enjoyed a Springsteen festival show a few years back, danced like mad. But there's a conservative core to Springsteen, and it bothers me everytime Born in the USA is presented as this liberal song getting horribly misread, when it contains such a heap of jingoistic, patriotic sentiment in the choruses, and music throughout. Springsteen wrote a song that didn't bring across the sentiment he aimed for, don't blame Reagan for figuring that out.
All of this is imo, obviously.
― Frederik B, Monday, 26 September 2016 15:31 (seven years ago) link
i guess i'm thinking about songs like "the river" where it may be about the white working class but it's super bleak + depressing
― Mordy, Monday, 26 September 2016 15:35 (seven years ago) link
if only being white and working class could be... great again
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 15:37 (seven years ago) link
The River is about tragedies of the present, it's implied that things were better in the past ('I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company / But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy') There's a sense of being trapped by tradition - being expected to do as your father, and, well, the fact that the couple don't just get an abortion - but it's still also a song about how things used to be better.
Another thing that kinda weirds me out, is if the song is about Springsteen's sister and brother in law, how come Mary is a complete non-entity? Isn't it kinda weird that Springsteen was able to invent an inner life for the character based on his brother-in-law, but the one based on his sister vanishes once she gets pregnant, and the only description of her is that she was 'tan and wet'? There's a hierarchy to who's inner suffering is worthy of portrayal.
― Frederik B, Monday, 26 September 2016 16:07 (seven years ago) link
What's the best Bruce Springsteen song about a woman? I'm no expert.
― Frederik B, Monday, 26 September 2016 16:21 (seven years ago) link
certainly his most passionate love song is "Bobby Jean" directed at a man.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 September 2016 16:23 (seven years ago) link
I'm no expert
lol
― mookieproof, Monday, 26 September 2016 16:33 (seven years ago) link
Bruce Springsteen is music for conservatives.
― Frederik B, Monday, September 26, 2016 4:50 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I wouldn't go that far, but Bruce does seem to be the 'cool' artist conservatives embrace. And it's probably wise to leave in depth analysis of song lyrics out of it, as his conservative public does not seem to mind. Speaking solely for the Netherlands, I could give you a list of ten big conservative/right wing pundits or politicians flaunting their love for Bruce every chance they get. No other musician is (ab)used that way iirc. The most blatantly bigot, racist right wingers all claim Bruce, almost as if they use him to show they have a heart (which they don't). It's his rugged masculinity and drive to keep going strong at his age that seems to appeal to something these people admire.
Bruce Springsteen is probably the most easily misunderstood musician of our days. A battlefield over which the left and right surge and fight to claim him.
― the tightening is plateauing (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 26 September 2016 16:39 (seven years ago) link
#trenchant
― the tightening is plateauing (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 26 September 2016 16:40 (seven years ago) link
if Brooks and George Will are explaining him, I'm happy he remains misunderstood *plays Tunnel of Love*
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 September 2016 16:41 (seven years ago) link
LBI, that's kinda what I mean. Consevatives love Bruce Springsteen = It's music for conservatives. It's not enough for me to say 'but they misunderstand'. The interesting part is why he is so 'easily misunderstood', which to my mind is the same thing as saying that he's politically confused, vague and weak. Which would of course be something conservatives would love in working class heroes.
― Frederik B, Monday, 26 September 2016 17:01 (seven years ago) link
marco rubio loves NWA and public enemy
conservatives love all kinds of music, a lot of ppl don't really give a shit they don't necessarily spend their lives connecting the music they listen and their own beliefs. i have a friend who's the president of a hydraulics company he inherited from his father and he loves fugazi the most.
― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 26 September 2016 17:09 (seven years ago) link
do you guys know actual american republicans that like Springsteen beyond playing singles or is this some thing where any american patriotic or nostalgic tendency sounds conservative
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 17:12 (seven years ago) link
chris christie loves bruce springsteen = it's music for chris christie
― mookieproof, Monday, 26 September 2016 17:14 (seven years ago) link
41 Shots, for example. Try go to it's genius-page and see the discussion of the text. Is the 'American Skin' meant to say that all Americans live in danger of gun violence, or is it about racism? And the second verse, where a mother instructs her child what to do if the police comes by, is that about how Amadou allegedly failed to do as he was told, or is it about how African-American families have to have this conversation over and over and over? Well, it's kinda hard to say, because it's deliberately vague, it can be read both ways. But, for instance, perhaps if the names of the mother and son in the second verse wasn't Lena and Charles, it would be clearer. Yet over and over in his music, Springsteen hedges his bets when he goes political, always moves in the direction of the general.
― Frederik B, Monday, 26 September 2016 17:14 (seven years ago) link
chris christie loves new jersey, you see
haha just kidding no one loves new jersey
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 17:15 (seven years ago) link
Try go to it's genius-page and see the discussion of the text.
finally we're back to the thread title
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 26 September 2016 17:16 (seven years ago) link
it's weird how often the T-Bone manifesto is getting referenced as some sort of piece of great thinking
― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 21:19 (seven years ago) link
NYT just offered it to me as "the single best critique on the modern technological society and its effect on culture and politics"uh?
― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 21:20 (seven years ago) link
Nice of Frederik to put his own worst music writing directly in this thread rather than waiting for someone to find it
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:05 (seven years ago) link
Lol
― flopson, Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:07 (seven years ago) link
omg lol
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:08 (seven years ago) link
*farts*
― savvinesslessness (map), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:11 (seven years ago) link
it bothers me everytime Born in the USA is presented as this liberal song getting horribly misread, when it contains such a heap of jingoistic, patriotic sentiment in the choruses, and music throughout. Springsteen wrote a song that didn't bring across the sentiment he aimed for, don't blame Reagan for figuring that out.
― Frederik B, Monday, September 26, 2016 3:31 PM (yesterday)
this is fucking ridiculous
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:14 (seven years ago) link
one might guess the writer was not born in the united states
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:39 (seven years ago) link
Bruce Springsteen is a conservative because he depicts the decline of the working class as a political and economic force which technically happened but saying anything in the past was better than the present is a tacit endorsement of racism
Is I think his argument here it's kind of unclear
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 27 September 2016 23:49 (seven years ago) link
no it is because he likes america as an abstract idea and not just a place you can live
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 00:58 (seven years ago) link
repeating the words born in the usa over and over again is jingoistic and patriotic cuz it's jingoistic and patriotic to have been born in the usa
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:01 (seven years ago) link
bruce springsteen is 67 years old and plays four-hour shows featuring guitars; he is inherently conservative
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:04 (seven years ago) link
It's possible to think Springsteen didn't quite know what he'd unleashed when he repeated the title over Weinberg's drums and that synth fanfare and that Frederik is bananas.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:08 (seven years ago) link
mookie has a point
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:36 (seven years ago) link
bruce springsteen is 67 years old and plays four-hour shows featuring guitars
and his primary guitar dates to the eisenhower era
― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 01:48 (seven years ago) link
how much do you have to wilfully misread something before it no longer qualifies as "reading"
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 04:16 (seven years ago) link
<3 u fact checking cuz
perhaps, as a bo diddley beat aficionado, you'd be interested in Songs where a musician starts "ernie-ing"/summoning up the great musical god Ernie.
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 28 September 2016 04:34 (seven years ago) link
hang on i thought when it came to US politics Fred was all about stuff that was politically vague, confused and fundamentally conservative?
― i bill everything i duck (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 28 September 2016 05:54 (seven years ago) link
didn't read, don't know about the author
6 BANDS NAMED AFTER VAGINAS YOU'LL BE TOTALLY INTOTHIS WAY FOR PUNS.
BRENNA EHRLICH08/07/2015
― goole, Friday, 7 October 2016 19:40 (seven years ago) link
i never felt like there was anything to misinterpret about born in the u.s.a. americans love to feel sorry for themselves. that's why it's called country music. it's a very patriotic song. trump could easily use it as an anthem. the anti-government message works well with his crowd. the lyrics are terrible though. "summertime blues" said it better and said it quicker.
― scott seward, Friday, 7 October 2016 20:31 (seven years ago) link
it really sounds like the prelude to a Falling Down/Taxi Diver style tantrum... or something
― brimstead, Friday, 7 October 2016 22:27 (seven years ago) link
(BitUSA)
― brimstead, Friday, 7 October 2016 22:28 (seven years ago) link
this has gotta be on purpose and bear with it but
https://festivalpeak.com/an-open-letter-to-drake-dj-khaled-and-the-rap-world-84cd4940deb4#.qslc42y8e
― rip my mensches (s.clover), Thursday, 13 October 2016 02:22 (seven years ago) link
or maybe its not on purpose in the way the author thinks. anyway, there's a point, and you'll know when you see it, where something unexpected happens.
― rip my mensches (s.clover), Thursday, 13 October 2016 02:28 (seven years ago) link
clickbait
― niels, Thursday, 13 October 2016 05:30 (seven years ago) link
In fact, there are dozens of songs that people think were recorded by The Beatles that were written and recorded by other groups, that were hits during this time.
These were actually all recorded by Weird Al.
― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Thursday, 13 October 2016 13:49 (seven years ago) link
herman's hermits iirc
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Thursday, 13 October 2016 14:19 (seven years ago) link
I often wish there was a way to just hard reset my discover weekly data, particularly when it drives itself into a rut like this one
― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Thursday, 13 October 2016 22:20 (seven years ago) link
i am requesting your fave "Dylan shouldn't / should have won that Nobel" pieces for this thread
― the notes the loon doesn't play (ulysses), Friday, 14 October 2016 03:56 (seven years ago) link