Abstract
In this chapter, I explore the musical representation of war and trauma in the music of Bruce Springsteen. The aim is to discuss, via detailed musical examples, the significance of music as a vehicle for dealing with collective trauma and transgenerational burden, and hence as a sociocultural site for the social healing process. By examining musical examples from Springsteen’s catalogue, I simultaneously urge the reader to view this notable artist in a new light. Methodologically I combine trauma studies and cultural music analysis, focusing primarily on the sonic substance and the mechanisms therein that construct meaning. I discuss three songs by Springsteen: “Born in the U.S.A.” (1984), “Devils & Dust” (2005), and “The Wall” (2014).
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Notes
- 1.
I have previously written about the representation of war and trauma in Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” in Välimäki (2015a), but no other songs by Springsteen are discussed in that article, which includes examples from various musical genres.
- 2.
A year after a song title indicates the date that the song was first published as a commercial audio product (usually in an album).
- 3.
Topic theory focuses on musical semantics in terms of conventions (topoi, “commonplaces,” stock of common ideas). Music is examined for its conventional codes related to styles, genres, expressions of sentiment, affects, figures, and other elements of musical rhetorics that have developed socially, culturally, historically, and aesthetically. Topics form a kind of standard vocabulary of semantic expressions in music; in this sense, certain musical constructions are comparable to metaphors, motifs, allegories, plot formulae, clichés, and other figures or tropes as defined in classical rhetoric. Topics are distinctive musical units, the structural characteristics of which have standard semantic references related to historical, social, compositional and technical styles, and genres. Most familiar classic topics include, for example, dances, military music, hunt music, horn signals, funeral march, tritone, dance of death, dies irae and other doomsday music. The category of topics is here understood as overlapping with genres, styles, and word painting (Välimäki 2005, 119–21). On topic theory and its applications, see, e.g., Ratner (1980), Monelle (2000, 2006), Välimäki (2005, 119–23, 236–300); and Mirka (2014); in popular music, see Tagg (1979), Tagg and Clarida (2003), Leydon (2010), and Spicer (2010). Word painting means that music imitates or reflects the word (or words) that is heard simultaneously; for example, a singer sings “down” and the melody simultaneously descends.
- 4.
- 5.
Among previous discussions of “Born in the U.S.A.,” there is an especially detailed one by Cowie and Boehm (2012). Another influential source for my research has been Stevan Weine’s (2007) study of song (lyrics) as societal trauma representation. Michael S. Neiberg and Robert M. Citino (2016) also emphasize structural trauma in their discussion of song (lyrics) as articulating the tragic connectedness of the working class to the military.
- 6.
Whether the song uses one chord or two is a matter of opinion. The B-major chord (B or B5 when played as a power chord) alternates with an altered B-major chord that has E in the bass (B/E). This altered B chord can, however, be interpreted as an altered fourth degree chord, Eadd9. Most of the time the chords are played as power chords that emphasize open fifths and create a constant sense of drones.
- 7.
Drawing intertextually on American imagery and history is characteristic of Springsteen’s music (see, for example, Harde and Streight [2010]; Womack et al. [2012]). For example, the title of “Born in the U.S.A.” echoes Ron Kovic’s book Born on the Fourth of July (1976), the autobiography of a paralyzed Vietnam War veteran, which was later adapted into a film (1989).The ironic title of Kovic’s memoirs, in turn, is a reference to the famous line in the patriotic Broadway song “Yankee Doodle Boy” (1904): “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy / A Yankee Doodle, do or die / A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam / Born on the Fourth of July.”
- 8.
- 9.
The song (lyrics) has been discussed in detail by Jason Schneider (2018), who examines it as an artistic response to the discourse of fear and the socio-political climate in the U.S. in the early 2000s. Also Jason Stonerook (2018, 66) suggests listening to the song (lyrics) as describing America’s fearful and paranoiac psyche in wrestling with the consequences of the Iraq invasion.
- 10.
In B2 and B3 there are two additional measures, owing to the repetition of the last two lines. In the DVD version, packaged with the CD and featuring an acoustic solo version of the song (voice, guitar, and harmonica), the key is E Major.
- 11.
This pattern divides the measure (4/4) metrically to 3/8 + 3/8 + 2/8, which forms a hypnotic-like contrast against the basic beat, thus adding up the sense of finality outside one’s control.
- 12.
By apocalypse I refer to the idea of large-scale unavoidable destruction of human culture as well as to the idea of war as the end of the world. War as apocalypse is a common topic in art on war, from Albrecht Dürer to Francis Ford Coppola, and from Arnold Schönberg to Judas Priest. The Christian eschatological imagery in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament is central to the topic of apocalypse (e.g. the various forms of the beast and the devil, dust and wind, the army of Christ, and doomsday trombones). This is a topic evoked in the lyrics of “Devils & Dust,” and enhanced by its musical imagery of the unavoidable fate. On apocalyptic imagery in popular culture, see Wallis and Newport (2014). In music, see also Abbate (2001), Scott (2003, 103–51), and Välimäki (2005, 267–300). On the musical imagery of religion and death, see Monelle (2000), Abbate (2001), and Scott (2003).
- 13.
This kind of arrangement in which a song begins with voice and guitar only, and then gradually grows with the addition of new instruments is typical of Springsteen’s socially conscious songs (Thurmaier 2011, 151).
- 14.
This can be seen as an important aspect of many folk music practices and being linked, for example, to the Celtic-Americana thread in Springsteen’s music in the twenty-first century.
- 15.
For previous studies of the song, see especially Chad Wriglesworth’s (2017, 168–73) discussion of the song (lyrics) and their relation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
- 16.
Nick Braae informed me that musically the song can be heard as an Irish lament, a genre revolving around a theme of a personal loss. In this sense, the song is reminiscent of the well-known Irish traditional song “The Parting Glass,” for instance.
- 17.
I have interpreted the tempo of the song here as a very slow funeral march, about 47 bpm (another option would be to interpret it two times faster, about 94 bpm). This interpretation is justified by the funeral march character of the song, which is most clearly heard at the end of the piece, in the trumpet solo and in the coda with the snare drum back beat.
- 18.
The harmonic structure of verses A1 and A3 is: A / A E / A / A E / C#m E/B / E C#m C#m/B / E, in which the last measure is only half as long as the others. The harmonic structure of verses A2 and A4 is: A / A E / A / A E / C#m E/B / E C#m / E/B E A / E, in which the last measure is half as long as the others, and the one preceding it contains an extra beat with the word “wall” (underlined here).
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Discography
Springsteen, Bruce. 1984a. Born in the U.S.A. /Bruce Springsteen. Columbia Records 5112562000. LP.
———. 1984b. Born in the U.S.A. Official music video. Directed by John Sayles. CBS Records. 4 minutes 43 seconds.
———. 2005. Devils & Dust. Columbia Records CSK 55416. CD.
———. 2006. “Devils & Dust.” Live Performance at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards, February 8, 2006 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA. Accessed 11 January 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5SNqgtTrq8.
———. 2014. High Hopes. Columbia Records 88843015461. CD.
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Välimäki, S. (2019). War and Trauma in the Music of Bruce Springsteen: “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Devils & Dust,” and “The Wall”. In: Braae, N., Hansen, K. (eds) On Popular Music and Its Unruly Entanglements. Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18099-7_6
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