Songoftheday 12/9/13 - Born down in a dead man's town the first kick I took was when I hit the ground, you end up like a dog that's been beat too much till you spend half your life just coverin' up..
Bruce Springsteen - "Born In The USA"
from the album Born In The USA (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #9 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11
Today's Song of the Day is the title track to Bruce Springsteen's biggest album Born In The U.S.A., which had already given him two top-10 singles with "Dancing In The Dark" and "Cover Me". As opposed to those more vague pop records, "Born In The U.S.A.", originally conceived during his Nebraska sessions in the early 80s, was his most political and emotional single to date. Sung from the perspective of a Vietnam Vet who has come back to indifference and neglect, the stark lyrics contrasted with the anthemic power chords from Roy Bittan's clarion.
"Born In The U.S.A." became the Boss' third top-10 single from the album in January of 1985, while going a notch higher on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. As a double-A-side single with "I'm On Fire" the song went to #1 in Ireland, #5 in England, and internationally, "Born..." topped the chart in New Zealand and went top-10 in Australia, Belgium, and Holland. Oddly, in Canada, the song stopped just short at #11...
However, besides the chart, the biggest influence the song had was when the Republican party, under President Reagan, tried to co-opt the song for their election rallies, with no clue as to the lyrical meaning of the song. It would be the symbol for misappropriated "working class anthems" the GOP would try to steal for their gain without having to actually put forward helpful legislation for those people.
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Here's Bruce on tour in 1985 with the song...
...and again from the 2003 tour...
...and with an acoustic take on a Spanish TV show in 1998..
Dance king Arthur Baker remixed this single like his first two, but it went over like a lead balloon...
There were two hit single "parodies" that used "Born In The USA". First in 1985, Cheech & Chong transformed it into a bit about Hispanics in California with "Born In East L.A.", which went to #48 in 1985 and even got the duo a movie version two years later...
...while in 1991 obscenity rap stars 2 Live Crew interpolated the song for "Banned In The USA" with the Boss' OK to highlight their legal troubles. It became their highest-charting single at #20 on the pop chart and #13 on R&B...
Up tomorrow: A Canadian rocker is sprinting in your direction.
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