In my youth I thought Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues (1967) was a song about knights who galloped on horseback wearing white satin, so I am no longer surprised when the attraction of a song’s melody overrides my understanding of the lyrics.
Such is the case with Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA (1984).
This song rates a spin up on the volume of my car radio or a little dance in the kitchen to that driving beat when the CD is playing.
“Born in the USA..ay” I will sing along with Bruce, Clarence Clemons and the E-Street Band*, “I was born in the USA..ay.”
I had always thought that this was a paean to America.
Then I read the lyrics.
Born in the USA
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 covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Got in a little hometown jam so they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me”
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said “Son don’t you understand now”
I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They’re still there he’s all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I’m ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain’t got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I’m a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I’m a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
*E-street Band
Roy Bittan – piano, synthesizer
Danny Federici – organ, glockenspiel, piano on “Born in the U.S.A.”
Garry Tallent – bass
Steven Van Zandt – acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmony vocals
Max Weinberg – drum
(sorry about the advertisement!)
Springsteen’s Born in the USA is not a tribute, but is instead a grim recollection of a man’s hard life in America; a life that began in abuse, involved a scuffle with the law, a tour in Vietnam, the loss of a friend at Khe Sahn, the return home to unemployment, and a life that still has the shadow of a penitentiary hovering over him as a possible end.
The poetry in the lyrics are a collision with the song’s percussive call to celebrate.
The quick-march tempo complements the song’s narrator’s movement; he is still moving, running, on an endless search for truth that Springsteen says is the true American way.
That truth, however, is full of irony.
While elements of the “American Dream” have eluded him, he remains stubbornly proud of his heritage.
While his service in Vietnam is not reciprocated by a grateful nation, he remains stubbornly proud of his country.
While there is the looming shadow of a penitentiary or unemployment at the refinery, the man has chosen to move down the road in a country where such movement is possible.
While he drifts with Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go, there is pride in American independence in the last line, I’m a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A.
Trust Springsteen to capture the paradox of America, a place where fate and the land of opportunity collide. That collision is captured in this song where we are left hopeful that something good will happen to the man who, despite the odds, remains proud to have been Born in the USA.
Connecticut had an average of over nine inches of rain this June, a mixed blessing. The cool temperatures and constant downpours had a direct impact on the dress code, and the beach attire favored by high school females (and appreciated by young high school males) was not a distraction. Furthermore, the temperatures in the classroom were cool, and the dark skies meant that lighting in the classroom was ideal for showing films to wrap up the year.
The weather, however, did dampen opportunities to teach one of my favorite poems by William Wordsworth, The Tables Turned. The poem is a plea to the reader to throw down the books with poems that try to capture nature, the art that mimics nature, or the science that tries to explain nature:
The Tables Turned
AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT (1798)
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you’ll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain’s head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:—
We murder to dissect.
Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.
When I teach the poem, I do what is now called “close reading”, a strategy favored by the Common Core State Standards, by having students pay attention to particular images, text structure, and word choice in order to determine an author’s purpose. The process can be a bit tedious, but in this case, I want them to feel a little hostile about “dissecting” the poem.
“What does the poem mean?” I will press them, “What is Wordworth’s purpose?”
“Nature is good?” (Maybe)
“Poems can make us appreciate nature?” (Perhaps)
“We cannot capture Nature in books?” (Possibly)
“We should ditch our books and go outside?” Absolutely!
And to the delight of everyone, I instruct my students to close up their books and go outside so that we can “let Nature be your Teacher”. That is the entire lesson. A poem, an analysis, and a trip outdoors that obeys the author’s intent.
Hopefully, next June will give us the day when the “sun above the mountain’s head/A freshening lustre mellow” lets us upend the tables and go outside to engage with Nature in order to “watch and receive” and leave close reading overturned.
Since the end of the Civil War, the last Monday in May has been set aside as Memorial Day, a day to honor all Americans who have died in military service for their country. There will be opportunities to celebrate by singing patriotic songs, wave flags in time with bands in parades, and eat barbecue.
There is, however, little to celebrate in the details of a death that occurs in military combat. The specifics in a soldier’s death are painful to hear or to read, but our discomfort should not prevent us from acknowledging the depth and breadth of each soldier’s sacrifice. Many of the returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are writing about their personal experiences and noting the sacrifices made by their fellow soldiers. These veterans write memoirs and include stories about friends who were killed. They recall their intimate thoughts when they themselves confronted death. They write about the grisly horrors they witnessed in war. Some write about people they killed in conflict. Some fictionalize accounts of their military experiences. Brian Turner writes poetry.
Brian Turner was an infantry team leader with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division from November 2003 where he served in Iraq. He already had an MFA from the University of Oregon before he joined to serve seven years in the U.S. Army. His first book of poetry, Here, Bullet, chronicles his time in Iraq. In the video below, he reads the title poem at Bowdoin College (November 29, 2005) in a film by documentary filmmaker Eric Herter, sponsored by From the Fishouse, an online audio archive of emerging poets, http://www.fishousepoems.org.
Here, Bullet
If a body is what you want
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood.
Our 11th graders review this poem and several other Turner poems when they read Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried, another piece of literature that is dedicated to the sacrifices made by soldiers during war. O’Brien’s connected short stories about an Army platoon during the Vietnam War also comes from his personal experience. In both works, images are painfully raw; some of the language in each is vulgar. Our students appreciate the authenticity and the authority of these voices in capturing the images of war. In O’Brien’s stories and in Turner’s poetry, war does not provide reasons for celebration other than the celebration of war’s end and the return of soldiers to their homes.
Consequently, Turner’s poetry does not give the reader the parade, picnic, or flag waving poetry that people recall in images about Memorial Day. His poetry is a painful tribute; an agonizing truth that people must remember. His poetry reminds us that our freedom has been purchased at a cost, and that cost may be through another’s suffering. His voice reminds us why we should never forget that cost, why there is a Memorial Day.
Used Books in Class 