cover image Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition

Born in the USA: Bruce Springsteen and the American Tradition

Jim Cullen. HarperCollins Publishers, $23 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-06-018780-4

Cullen's unapologetic pursuit of deeper cultural meanings in Bruce Springsteen's music and life is refreshing, if at times far-fetched. Cullen has taken on the considerable task of revealing how Springsteen is the heir to the independent-minded rusticity of Whitman, Lincoln and Twain--a nice idea, but one that Cullen doesn't completely realize. The problem is that Cullen never fully posits just what the ""American tradition"" of his book's title is. He proves a sensitive interpreter of Springsteen's work, as when he describes the drum machine on ""Streets of Philadelphia"" as ""an irregular heartbeat sustained by technological means,"" but then (typically) suggests that the song's greater, ""American"" significance rests with its dying narrator's sense of alienation and his hope for an afterlife, two dispositions that are more universal than distinctly American. Reading Cullen's comparisons of Springsteen to Whitman, one wishes that Cullen had applied the same open-mindedness to the work of Springsteen's admitted influences Bob Dylan, Phil Spector and Roy Orbison. Instead of weakly stating that Springsteen and Whitman share such vague virtues as ""musicality"" and simplicity, Cullen might have traced Springsteen's forebears back through his heroes to Whitman, providing a far richer insight into Springsteen's American voice. (June)