TS: Bruce Springsteen's "Racing in the Street" vs. Eminem's "Stan"

Isn’t that Bruce narrative strategy kind of common though? In novels, maybe, when the protagonist is a child, like David Copperfield, say, but doesn’t have to be a child I guess, could just be a Good Soldier. Although maybe in that case it is more implicit, the child/narrator reports events but doesn’t quite understand the significance of them, although we can figure it because the author is signaling us. What’s the word they taught us in school, dramatic irony? Kind of hard to do in a three minute pop song, or is it?

lol

I probably didn't phrase it that well, but I'm not really talking about dramatic irony. I would say that Bruce successfully uses that a lot in songs like Badlands or The Promised Land, where you have this hopeful tone despite everything about the narrator's circumstance telling you that the hope is pretty futile.

Racing in the Street doesn't quite work that way to me because it sounds so miserable. That's what I mean about the guy simultaneously seeming self-aware and not. He's not accidentally telling you a depressing story through details he doesn't understand. The song sounds like he knows his situation is miserable. Half the lyrics tell you he knows his situation is miserable. The other half tell you he's clueless. To me, that comes across as an inconsistent POV rather than dramatic irony.

I didn't phrase mine well either, and by the time I was finished typing I kind of realized what you were getting at, thanks for clarifying.

“Racing in the Street” shoulda been done in a Beach Boys style, super upbeat with a lot of “oo-WOO-ee-ooooh” and “bom-bom-bom” background vox.