One thing we have learned from the 2024 US presidential race is that pop music is the new gold dust – sought, treasured, and valued for the excitement, voters, and appeals it can generate for a party’s political brand. The recent Democratic National Convention at times appeared more like a music festival than a gathering of the party faithful. In between periodic blasts of Beyoncé’s “Freedom” through the PA system, the Dems drew from their deep bullpen of pop pitchers to energize the base while throwing shade on the opposition.
Americana hipster Jason Isbell yanked symbolic patriotism from the clutches of Trump’s loyal worshippers by performing “Something More Than Free” in front of a huge barn emblazoned with the American flag. Mickey Guyton, the country singer scorned by the far-right media for having the temerity to release a song called “Black Like Me” about her experiences with racism, sang “All American” for the so-called party of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). This poke was followed by a punch in the gut to the party of Lincoln when the Chicks took the stage to harmonize the national anthem.
Back in 2004, when they were the Dixie Chicks, the band had been cast out of the country club after singer Natalie Maines expressed shame about hailing from the same state—Texas—as commander-in-chief George W. Bush, then in the process of prosecuting a war against Iraq on suspect premises. For those paying attention, the music at the DNC was now implicitly prosecuting the case against the entire Republican Party, in the process claiming rights to its brand essence of raw patriotism.
The Republican National Convention also used music for branding purposes; however, as always, the party lacked the firepower of its opposition. Moreover, with its dramatic shift to the right, artists willing to damage their own brands by cozying up to the party of Trump had grown scarce. Still, Kid Rock showed up to share a piece of heartland rap-rock for the party’s basest constituency, and Lee Greenwood satiated the evangelicals by performing his old chestnut “God Bless the U.S.A.” Played multiple times throughout the convention, Greenwood’s anthem represented the Republican brand as “Freedom” did for the Democrats.
Symbolism and signals are more important than sales or success when it comes to what makes for a good campaign song. Everyone loves an anthem, preferably with a singalong section and hook to engage audiences, and both Greenwood’s and Beyoncé’s songs satisfy these criteria. A positive message or vibe that bears repetition is also desirable, with that message speaking to a desired core constituency. Sometimes mistakes are made in this match-making exercise, such as when the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign used contemporary pop hits by Demi Lovato (“Confident”) and Gym Class Heroes (“The Fighter”). Nobody believed the candidate listened to (or even liked) these songs, and her honesty and authenticity were already questionable to many voters.
The jury is still out on whether candidates should co-opt songs from artists that openly hate them. Donald Trump has received so many “cease and desist” letters from irate musicians that Wikipedia has a daily-growing page entitled “Musicians who oppose Donald Trump’s use of their music”. Some political pundits, though, argue that the ensuing back-and-forth helps Trump’s image as a rule-breaker while giving him the attention he craves to “own the libs”. Co-option thus becomes just another step in the dance. Celine Dion was one of the artists who denounced Trump’s unauthorized use of her music, though one wonders how he could possibly benefit from using “My Heart Goes On”, a song played as the ship sank in Titanic.
One artist that candidates of all stripes have sought to co-opt over the last four decades is Bruce Springsteen. His 1984 hit, “Born in the U.S.A.”, particularly appeals as political populism does. An emotional method of politicking more than an ideology with policy positions, the ideational definition of a populist is a self-proclaimed leader who presents himself or herself as the voice of the people. Whether categorized as a class or a nation, the “people” are romanticized by the populist, envisioned in contrast to a corrupt government or society’s so-called elites.
Populism can shape-shift across the political spectrum. Today it is represented on the far left by Bernie Sanders and on the far right by Trump, but part-time populists populate American history. Forty years ago, President Ronald Reagan indulged his inner populist by celebrating Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” as though he had had a hand in its writing and success. Ever since, the album’s title track has been used and abused, adopted and co-opted, read and misread by a stream of politicians from both major parties. What all users have in common is the goal of winning the “heartland”, that mythical swing state between the coasts; its musical correlative, “heartland rock”, arrived as a genre designation the moment Springsteen emerged as a national superstar.
The Making and Taking of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”
Inspired by Ron Kovic’s 1976 memoir, Born on the Fourth of July, the narrator of “Born in the U.S.A.” tells his story of endless war, the battlefields of Vietnam replaced with the battlegrounds of his hometown on his return, where institutions (employers, the Veterans Administration) can/do not help him adjust or re-orient to civilian life. Yet the vet is torn, too, frustrated with his treatment while holding onto the patriotism he has been indoctrinated with. As historian Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz observes, “Even after everything, he still seems proud to identify himself as an American, with all the hope and glory that it is supposed to represent.”
In the final full-band version of the song, Springsteen captures the character’s frustration, confusion, and anger in a larynx-straining vocal performance, and by encouraging drummer Max Weinberg to channel his inner Ginger Baker with “turbulent” outbursts, each whack of he gives adds resonance by running the snare through gated reverb. Although not one of the biggest hits of the seven singles released from 1984’s Born in the U.S.A., it became Springsteen’s signature song on the promotional tour that traversed America during that summer. By then, Springsteen had become the Boss, the iconic pop star and sex symbol of heartland rock.
Early to pick up on the potential political value of Boss-mania was influential Washington Post columnist George Will. The conservative pundit had a fan in Max Weinberg’s wife, who invited him to attend the Largo, Maryland, stop on the tour. Taken by the flag-waving and working-class camaraderie at the show, Will, then also an unofficial advisor to Reagan, alerted his election campaign to the possibilities of co-opting this seemingly patriotic, hard-working rock star into the fold.
Initial inquiries into getting Springsteen’s endorsement were rebuffed, but the candidate jumped on the Boss bandwagon anyway. Reagan seized the opportunity to use Springsteen in his pitch for the “heartland” voter when his tour made a re-election campaign stop in the singer’s home state of New Jersey. Standing on stage in Hammonton, the president declared, “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire—New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.”
Symynkywicz reports that “Springsteen was livid. To see his work co-opted by Reaganites—arch-conservative, pro-business Republicans who were, he felt, perhaps most culpable for many of the problems people like those in his songs faced—aggrieved him severely.” Two days later, at a show in Pittsburg, the singer sarcastically wondered which one of his songs might be the president’s favorite. With a fan base spanning the political spectrum, Springsteen had always been tactically mute in declaring any party allegiances; with Reagan’s comment, that would change. Nevertheless, it is worth considering why Springsteen and “Born in the U.S.A.” were considered ripe for political exploitation and whether the artist himself was partially to blame for the appropriation.
Was Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” (Mis)Taken? (Mis)Used? (Mis)Understood?
Clearly, Springsteen had what Reagan wanted as the candidate sought to expand his voter majority across the heartland’s working-class constituencies. Plain-spoken, plainly dressed, and draped in Stars and Stripes on the stage and the album cover, the Boss of ’84 was a poster boy for would-be populists. Moreover, by being avowedly non-denominational regarding party affiliations, he was up for grabs on both left and right, a blank slate for opportunists to make their mark upon.
Reagan was not alone in making a claim, either, the Democratic Party nominee Walter Mondale equally hopeful of being em-Bossed. “Bruce Springsteen may have been born to run but he wasn’t born yesterday,” quipped Mondale of the Gipper’s brazen co-option, claiming that he had secured the singer’s endorsement—which he hadn’t!
Nowadays, Springsteen is recognized as a liberal figure on the cultural landscape and is likely to support most Democratic Party candidates openly. Such was not the case in 1984, though, when many saw his image, identity, and working-class American pride as evidence of him being more right of center. Will claims not to know the singer’s politics in his “Bruce Springsteen’s U.S.A.” piece for The Washington Post, but his praise revolves around familiar right-wing virtues: effort, hard work, and creating a good product. Even though he sings about hard times, Will observes with awe, “flags get waved at his concerts” and “problems always seem punctuated by a grand, cheerful affirmation: ‘Born in the U.S.A.’!”.
No wonder the commentator alerted his presidential buddy to how user-friendly the Boss could be. With few specific solutions but lots of patriotic vibes, Springsteen tapped into the same populist appeals as Reagan. Interviewed close to the election, Springsteen appeared to admit as much, speaking admiringly to Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder about the traits in Reagan that many saw in himself. The president evokes “nostalgia for [a] mythic America” by creating “an image that people want to believe in,” he explains.
Both populists seeking greater popularity, one can imagine a phrase like “Morning in America” or words like “idealism” and “individuality” coming from the lips of either Reagan or Springsteen. American Studies professor Marc Dolan highlights their common pursuit of national(ist) symbols, stating, “Viewed side by side, their relaunches look strikingly similar at points, particularly in terms of the visuals they presented.” Right-wing populists collect their “visuals” from sources spouting traditional patriarchy and patriotism—and the media fed them all they needed.
“There is not a smidgen of androgyny in Springsteen,” Will proclaims with glee, while journalist Paul Galloway of the Chicago Tribune compares him glowingly to that other semi-Italian stallion, Sly Stallone, as Rambo. Journalist Zach Dunkin of the Indianapolis Star similarly celebrates the Boss’ heterosexual masculinity by declaring, “He’s a man’s man. And a woman’s man.” Springsteen and his handlers did little to counter this narrative, photographer Annie Leibovitz capturing the front-man’s newly buffed body (and behind) with her cover shot for the album. Amidst all the imagery of working-class muscularity, the American flag was never far from view, and its ubiquitous presence in all the promotional materials for Born in the U.S.A. tempered the critical contents of its title track’s lyrics.
Chicago Tribune journalist Greg Kot argues that “Springsteen is at least partially complicit” for his song being interpreted and co-opted as a patriotic anthem. Music critic Steven Hyden concurs, arguing that in the song’s construction, “Bruce created a rhetorical void that commentators were inclined to fill.” In the song’s back-and-forth between verses voicing criticism of the nation’s treatment of Vietnam vets and choruses voicing a celebratory statement of national pride, the former gets lost in the mix. Some blame the garbled vocals in the verses contrasting with the clarion call of the chorus line; some blame the incongruity of messages between the two. Springsteen has accepted these charges, but argues that constructing the song any other way would have been “not as satisfying”. Misunderstanding was the price he was willing to pay for crafting a complex and conflicted character. The narrator’s contradictory consciousness sets the song apart from the typical us-versus-them protest song.
This is not to say that the artist has not harbored regrets over how his preferred reading has so often been met by negotiated or oppositional ones. In his 2016 memoir, Born to Run, he rages about Reagan’s cynicism, and about how the Republican Party was “intent on co-opting a cow’s ass if it has the Stars and Stripes tattooed on it.” Yet, Springsteen was not averse to using those Stars and Stripes to bolster his trajectory to stardom, nor to using ambiguity or other stock symbols to satisfy diverse demographics—to be all things to all potential listeners. “This gun’s for hire,” he admits on his biggest hit of that period, “Dancing in the Dark”, Still, Springsteen is pensive about the co-option of “Born in the U.S.A.” on the one hand, recognizing “Records are often auditory Rorschach tests; we hear what we want to hear”, while admitting that his experiences in 1984 made him, he says, “think harder about the way I presented my music”,
The political saga of “Born in the U.S.A.” did not end in 1984. After Reagan’s landslide re-election victory in November of that year, populism became a staple of his party’s brand, finding extreme manifestations in the likes of Pat Buchanan, Sarah Palin, and Donald Trump. Much to Springsteen’s chagrin, accompanying these far-right base-dwellers has been his most politicized song. Trying to resist its co-option as best he can, the Boss has issued cease and desist letters to Bob Dole, Buchanan, and Trump over the years, calling the latter “a moron” just to make his distaste at any implied association clear. He even retired the band version of the song for decades after its release, hoping that an acoustic rendition would accentuate the “lost” verses more for audiences.
Nevertheless, the co-option continues, whether used by the Harris-Walz ticket at the 2024 D.N.C. to represent the hard-working heartland or by Trump for his various ego-massaging PR stunts. Some songs capture the zeitgeist of a moment, others stand the test of time, and some take on meanings and go places the artist never intended. “Born in the U.S.A.” continues to be all these and much more.
Works Cited
Dolan, Marc. Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock ‘n’ Roll. W.W. Norton & Co. 2012.
Hyden, Steven, There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland. Hachette. 2024.
Kot, Greg, “Born in the U.S.A.: Misunderstood Songs”. BBC. 21 October 2014.
Palmer, Robert, “What Pop Lyrics Say to Us Today“. New York Times. 24 February 1985.
Siegel, Alan, “Red, White, and Misused: How ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Became an Anthem for Everything That It Wasn’t”. The Ringer. 4 June 2024.
Springsteen, Bruce, Born to Run. Simon & Schuster. 2016.
Symynkywicz, Jeffrey B.. The Gospel according to Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Redemption, From Asbury Park to Magic, Westminster John Knox Press. 2008.