Confessions of a Fanboy

I’m fascinated by the mystery behind why I listen to what I listen to when I listen to it.

I know I started the morning here on Fanboy writing about last night’s Springsteen show in Portland, so I’m not altogether surprised the first thing I queue up on my iPod is by Springsteen. What I wouldn’t have guessed is that “Last To Die” would be that song.

I’ve written extensively about my affection for this new record. I think it’s easily one of the best things he’s done. Magic is probably in the top five albums of his career and might even be a little higher than that, but “Last To Die” isn’t one of the songs I’d normally point to in trying to make that case. It’s a good song but it’s not the song I love most. Still, that’s the one that was in my head this morning as I got set to do some work.

I haven’t studied the lyrics extensively, but it’s interesting the way the song opens with imagery that is standard Springsteen fare before giving way to the most politically charged chorus of the album.

We took the highway till the road went black
We’d marked, Truth or Consequences on our map
A voice drifted up from the radio
And I thought of a voice from long ago

Highways and radios and long, lost voices. How many Springsteen songs have used those? He throws all three in the first verse before giving way to the chorus.

Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who’ll be the last to die, for a mistake

These two passages don’t feel particularly connected to me. That feeling continues with the first two lines of the second verse. “Kids asleep in the backseat/We’re just counting the miles, you and me.” It’s not until the next lines of the second verse that the verses start tying into the chorus. “We don’t measure the blood we’ve drawn anymore/We just stack the bodies outside the door.”

Theories on what’s at play here? I think he’s speaking metaphorically in these first lines. The we isn’t necessarily two people; it’s the country. We, as a country, got on the highway and drove straight into the darkness. Who is the voice from long ago? I don’t know. As the song continues it becomes easier to see the “we” as the United States when he says we don’t measure the blood we’ve drawn, we just stack the bodies.

It seems to me throughout the song Bruce is trying to bridge the gap between what’s going on “over there” and the reactions and impacts of that “at home.”

The heart of this song, for me, comes at the end of the third verse and not the chorus:

The sun sets in flames as the city burns
Another day gone down as the night turns
And I hold you here in my heart
As things fall apart

A lot of protest songs have been written about President George W. Bush’s America, and most of them have sucked. One of the reasons Springsteen has done this better is that many of the songs on this record start with the premise that America is a good and special place that has lost its way. America is not a perpetual villain in Springsteen’s world view; it’s a good idea that has lost its way- an idea explored to even better effect in “Long Walk Home.” It’s also a more timeless sentiment.

The chorus is very much tied to the times and times of war. The idea that America has lost its values is going to be relevant to a large swath of the country at any given time. You can be a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican, a Christian or a non-Christian and look around and think we’ve lost our fucking minds. Springsteen might have very specific images in his head when he sings these songs and the chorus brings those in to focus. Other places in the song allow for a wider interpretation that goes beyond 2003-2008, Iraq, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, etc., and that is part of the power of these songs.

Of course, I could have this all completely wrong. That’s just what I hear and I still don’t know why “Last to Die” was the first song I listened to this morning.

Filed under: Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Music of the Moment