This 1984 Classic Still Fools Listeners Into Thinking It's A Patriotic Anthem

We've all seen it. You're at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and there's that one shirtless dude wrapped in an American flag howling the chorus to Springsteen's 1984 hit, "Born in the U.S.A.," but totally out of tune. Maybe he's got a bald eagle painted on his chest and a bumper sticker on his truck that reads: "God, guns, and gasoline." Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but folks do still, to this day, somehow mistake "Born in the U.S.A." for a heartfelt, patriotic anthem.

Let's have a look at a sample of lyrics from "Born in the U.S.A." to get to the not-too-deep bottom of this conundrum. Verse five reads, in full: "Down in the shadow of the penitentiary / Out by the gas fires of the refinery / I'm ten years burnin' down the road / Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go." Not too sunny of a view of the good 'ole U.S. of A., right? The hidden (but not actually hidden) meaning of Bruce Springsteen' "Born in the U.S.A." is quite the opposite. It's a scathing, bitter critique not of the American people, nor the U.S. on a whole, but of how veterans, specifically, are cast aside by politicians who use them to fight wars. They're sent off from a "little hometown" to "a foreign land / To go and kill the yellow man," then arrive home to hopeless and desperate circumstances. It's as simple as that.

So, why do folks not understand this blatantly clear meaning? We can't say for sure, but it might boil down to not paying attention and doing what we described above: howling the "Born in the U.S.A." chorus line and not listening any further.

"Born in the U.S.A.'s" path to misunderstood anthem is a strange one. As Rolling Stone told the tale, Springsteen penned the foundation for the song while writing the 1982 dark-folk album "Nebraska." After "Nebraska" saw the light of day, Springsteen and his band went right back into the studio to poke through the album's unused tracks in preparation for their next album. At the time, "Born in the U.S.A." sat on a tape, semi-formed but just a glimmer of its future self. Springsteen and company got down to some nuts-and-bolts songwriting work and chipping away at parts, but especially focused on the percussion, which Springsteen said was supposed to "sound like confusion and bombs."

In other words, the meaning of "Born in the U.S.A." was there from the get-go. Early cuts of the lyrics were much more on-the-nose, though, and would have been all but impossible to misconstrue. As Rolling Stone says, Springsteen rhymed "Born in the U.S.A." with "the American way" and sang directly about President Nixon, explicitly stating that Nixon should have had his balls cut off for invading Cambodia. Who knows if the 1984 hit song would have reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 (not No. 1, like it seems this hit rock song should have) if Springsteen had kept those lyrics?

Instead, Springsteen pulled back on the obvious, angrier lyrical angle to focus on veterans back home. Rather than merely rail against the powers that be, he portrayed a sympathetic portrait of working class Americans ruined by political games. But in the end, maybe all the talk of "gas fires of the refinery" "in the shadow of the penitentiary" was somehow just too subtle for folks to grok — we're not sure. 

There's another reason why "Born in the U.S.A." might have gotten so misunderstood over time, one that connects directly and ironically to those individuals Springsteen holds accountable in his song: politicians. That is, the song has been wielded by political candidates at rallies again and again since its release, used as a thoughtless, hooting cry of patriotic fervor.

Ronald Reagan was the first to misuse "Born in the U.S.A." right when the song was released in 1984. During his re-election campaign, Reagan cited the song as emblematic of the American Dream, saying, "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside our 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," per Neatorama. At a concert following Reagan's speech, Springsteen offered probably the classiest and cleverest response you could imagine, saying, per The Ringer, "The president was mentioning my name the other day. And I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album must have been. I don't think it was the 'Nebraska' album. I don't think he's been listening to this one." The "Nebraska" album, of course, offered a dark portrayal of overlooked American lives, including a title song based on real-life, melancholy occurrences. And as mentioned, Springsteen started writing "Born in the U.S.A." while writing that album.

Despite Springsteen speaking out against the misuse of "Born in the U.S.A.," and no matter countless articles about the topic, including this one, the public's false perception about the song persists. Maybe the song is just too damn good, and people feel too happy while hearing it. But if so, that's an indication of Springsteen's talent and the tragedy of the song, alike.