Finally, at TNR, Bruce Springsteen has received the put-down he has deserved for quite some time, written by the magazine’s long-time literary editor, Leon Wieseltier. The singer-songwriter has recently received two major rave articles, one by Jeffrey Golodberg in The Atlantic, and the other by David Remnick in The New Yorker. In his usual acerbic style, Wieseltier tears apart these two examples of bad journalism. He makes the following point:
David Remnick’s 75,000-word profile of Bruce Springsteen is another one of his contributions to the literature of fandom. Once again there is a derecho of detail and the conventional view of his protagonist, the official legend, is left undisturbed. It could have been written by the record company.
Calling both articles on Springsteen “articulate swoon” and “stenographic journalism,” and later makes the point that “nobody tries harder and less persuasively, to be everyman than Bruce Springsteen.” Once a fan of Springsteen — I recall a column Wiesltier wrote many decades ago about hearing him in concert for the first time and how exciting he thought it was — he is candid to acknowledge his “musical decline” which includes “the sanctimony, the grandiosity, the utterly formulaic monumentality; the witlessness; the tiresome recycling of those antithetic figures, each time more preposterously distended…” You get the idea.
When it comes to Springsteen’s left-wing politics, Wieseltier does not let Springsteen off the hook:
Nothing has damaged Springsteen’s once-magnificent music more than his decision to become a spokesman for America. He is Howard Zinn with a guitar. The wounded workers in his songs do not have the authenticity of acquaintance; they are pious hackneyed tropes, stereotypical class martyrs from Guthrie and Steinbeck. Springsteen’s sympathy is genuine, but his people are not. His 9/11 and recession songs are bloated editorials: “where’s the promise from sea to shining sea?” His anger that “the banker man grows fat” is too holy: “if I had a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ‘em on sight” is not a “liberal insistence.” I prefer Dodd-Frank. The drawl in his voice is a production value, the grit a mannerism. A few minutes with one of Johnny Cash’s last records and it is impossible to take Springsteen’s vernacular seriously. A few minutes with Lucinda Williams (who is perilously close to becoming a prisoner of her own mannerisms) and the costs of preferring sermons to experiences are clear. When was the last time Springsteen wrote a song as moving and true as Alejandro Escovedo’s “Down in the Bowery”?
Or as Dylan once said of Phil Ochs, “You’re not a songwriter, Phil, you’re a journalist.” In a nice turn, Wiesltier ends his article by turning the to 60′s sage Herbert Marcuse, who was upset that America would not have a revolution, but would “contain its contradictions without resolving them; it will absorb opposition and reward it.” Wieseltier agrees, and notes that this is “good news, because we will be spared the agonies of political purifications.” And he notes, “protest songs become entertainment for the rich,” and its bard Springsteen “the idol of the elite.”
Kudos to Wieseltier for going against the grain, and for telling the truth about the much heralded so-called boss.
I remember when I heard “Born to Run” the first time. I was convinced it was satire, a novelty record.
“protest songs become entertainment for the rich,”
They have ALWAYS been thus: there were no actual members of the “folk” in the folk-music audience. They were every bit as much affluent whitebread as the #Occupy protesters. Debutante-cum-folkie-cum-fashion plate Joan Baez is the perfect exemplar for an ersatz genre with all the authenticity of Vanilla Ice.
In fact, these ‘all-for-the-working-man’ pseuds have nothing but contempt for genuine working folks’ music, given that it tends to come with Southern accents and guys who actually were working men. You want to hear real folk music, go to a bluegrass festival.
Right ON!!!!!!
MSM coverage of Mitt Romney’s family can always work in mention of his wife’s dressage riding and costly horse. Coverage of Springsteen’s daughter’s same (without the therapeutic excuse)? Not so much.
Werewife,
Yes, the article referencing the Springsteens’ $850,000 horse deal is “unexpectedly” missing from TNR’s article. Fortunately, it’s online here.
I saw Springsteen in the early 70′s long before he hit it big. He had an electricity and vitality that drove the crowds wild. Now he is something else entirely.
From 2009:
http://oceanaris.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/bruce-springsteen-is-a-putz/
When one is flying in a G5 and living on an estate, one simply doesn’t get the real world. Withdrawal from it is one of the greatest of luxuries. One can write songs like Woodie Guthrie, but from the standpoint of credibility, Springsteen has none.
Thirty years ago, the show to watch for celebrity fans was Robin Leech and “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” We need an updated version for today, once appropriate to the level of the contemporary celebrity-political class exemplified by Springsteen, Cher, Rosanne Barr, etc… “Lifestyles of the Rich and Fatuous.”
He lost me with “41 Shots”, where he played judge and jury to the New York City Police Department on the Amadou Diallo shooting, followed by hia situational pirouette just over a year later into being dubbed by his fawning acolytes as the voice of the NYPD and NYFD in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy (followed, in turn, be his return to his hack liberal positions over the next five years as it became safe to go after the NYPD again).
The Boss situatioanally changed his position because he knew treating the police as the bad guys after 9/11 would be, if not career suicide, a fast trip into small club and concert hall status for the foreseeable future. Can’t sing from your heart if it might drop you out of being part of the 1 percent (and to any fans out there who’ve seen his concerts in recent years — as Bruce ever paired one of his Sept. 11 songs and “41 Shots” in the same concert?)
“Presenting honest stories of working people as told by rich Hollywood stars” – Firesign Theatre.
Sometimes it’s hard to get your mind around concepts like authenticity when you’re thinking about entertainment. Seriously, in post-modern America, what qualifies as “authentic?” Performers perform – they get up on stage and do things they don’t do offstage. Is there a difference between Bruce acting like a hillbilly in a concert, Brad Pitt acting like a hillbilly in a movie, and a hillbilly acting like a hillbilly in the hills? Even “real” hillbillies, to some degree, learn to act like hillbillies by watching TV and listening to music. It’s all mixed up.
I think Bruce crosses the line, just like a lot of old folkies crossed the line. They were not who they pretended to be, but the pretense wasn’t just an act intended to entertain (like Brad Pitt acting like a hillbilly). The pretense was intended to make audiences believe that a political message was coming from someone just like them. Good ol’ Pete Seeger could have dressed like Lenin but nobody would have believed him. Dress him up in some overalls & a straw hat, and by golly don’t he just look a good ol’ boy from down home! ‘Course you can trust him! Same deal with Bruce and his blue jeans, t-shirt, back-pocket bandana, and hokey country accent.
I have no problem with a Jewish guy from New York City getting up on stage dressed in a cowboy outfit, singing cowboy songs, as long as it’s clear he’s just pretending – just for fun, for entertainment, just for the joy he takes in the music. How many singing cowboys are left today? How many “authentic” country singers, blues singers, rappers, what have you? You have to take what you can get. What you don’t have to take is a fake – someone who really wants you to believe his act is who he is.
Just like U2 and Bono, when self righteous moralizing and casting stones at other peoples perceived sins becomes MORE important than the music you become nothing more than a parody of what you once were and poison your legacy.
Put down the Hopium pipe Bruce, it’s rotting your talent away…
First off, I have long been a fan of Bruce Springsteen’s music. He truly is an amazing live performer who works harder than he has to at this point in his career, and literally goes the extra mile (and a half) to ensure that everyone in the audience is satisfied. That in itself is a rarity these days. But I agree that he has become a crashing bore as a recording artist, and like Wieseltier, believe it stems from his decision to be used as a spokesman for the “working-man.” However, I believe the seeds of this decision were planted long ago, as far back a the mid-seventies, when he met and fell under the influence of Jon Landau, a left-wing rock journalist and record reviewer who became a confidant and in short order, his manager. But the thing is, I think Springsteen-far from being cynical about his role as a multi-millionaire folksinger,is truly sincere. He probably believes all the accolades the elites have bestowed upon him, and can’t possibly be so out of touch as to not realize the lives of his well-heeled fans- who-here in New Jersey,at least, regard him almost as a god ,attend multiple shows, hold tailgate wine-and cheese parties, and then drive off in their Range Rovers and BMW’s to their secluded and often exclusive suburban bedroom communities ( and if it’s a Friday night in the summer, to their Jersey Shore second homes)are nothing like the phony, cut-rate cardboard characters on whose behalf he claims to be writing. True “working class” people are too busy looking for work, or working multipe part-time jobs to be able to afford scalper’s prices for Springsteen concerts, and when they do find themselves with down time, are usualy found listening to country, rap, hardcore punk or heavy metal, not Springsteen’s increasingly lame renderings of their very real existence. I’ll say it: his latest album, Wrecking Ball ,is unlistenable. His first two albums, both released in 1973, are a hundred times more interesting.
I’m a fresh Hollywood refugee, and while I never shopped for real in this particularly exclusive store called Maxfield’s in West Hollywood, I know for a fact that Bruce Springsteen regularly DOES. A real working-class kind of store where you may run into other working-class kinds of heroes like Keith Richards, Michael Stipe, etc. They all shop at Maxfield’s in West Hollywood.
What kind of working class store is Maxfield’s???
You can get the same jeans as the boss (jeans at the store typically run $300-800 a pair) or the same type of super-fancy cotton tee shirt (typically $200-400) that Bruce Springsteen wears at Maxfield’s. You can also buy the bare necessities to live out of your car while you travel the back roads in your broken truck singing ballads to the Working Man. $20,000 gets you a durable alligator overnight bag at Maxfield’s suitable for The Road. And for securing those crumpled-up worn-out hard-scrabble working-class greenbacks, $8,000 gets you a sturdy silver chain to secure your $5,000 stingray wallet onto those working jeans.
Max Weinberg is still a drumming legend. He is not flashy but his timing is flawless. Worth going to the concert just for him.
IMHO Springstein has done nothing worth my time to listen to in the last 25 years, and politically he is an RBC.
What members of the working class rip the knees of their own black jeans before taking the stage or wear a vest over a denim shirt? Springsteen has always been a bozo. And I still love the irony of this “voice of the working class” having the moniker “The Boss.”
Not everyone in the E-Street Band is (was) equally talented. Weinberg, the keyboardist Roy Bittan, and especially the lead guitarist Nils Lofgren are all first-rate. The late Danny Federici(organ) and Clarence Clemmons, along with bassist Garry Tallent, guitarist Steve Van Zandt, and Springsteen himself rarely rose above traditional bar band competency. Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers are probably, musician for musician, a far better band.
Saw them again this year and got the same impression. Couple of times I heard Bruce and the band drift off especially on the newer numbers and Max just nailed them down to the beat. His drum riser is right up front. I think Bruce is the draw and Max is really the technical band leader who keeps it together.
They did not do Thunder Road which is my favorite so dissapointed about that. Bruce is still best live and works it hard, gotta give him credit for that.
Bob Seger was always the better working-man’s rocker. Especially “Building Thunderbirds.”
Correction. Sorry, I guess it was Makin’ Thunderbirds.
Why do we give these “entertainers” so much attention? The word “entertainers” says it all. Because that is what they are. No different than watching a clown show at “Barnum and Bailey’s Circus.” And we put them on the same level as philosophers of old, filled with some wisdom, in actuality nothing more than than what my neighbors’s dog leaves on my front lawn. Like having the court jester tell the king how to run the kingdom, becoming a defacto ruler. Gary Cooper said it perfectly, when asked a question on politics, “Why are you asking me? I’m just an actor!”
I agree with your general idea but there is a type of caste system among entertainers. Springsteen has been in the public eye for 40 years now. He has written hundreds of songs, and many of them have been covered by artists of diverse musical stripe. He’s been the subject of dozens of books and hundreds of articles, and though the vast majority of them truck in the usual worthless left-wing tropes, there is enough in his art worthy of discussion. His political opinions may not be worth more than any of ours, but asking him his views is not the same as asking the cast members of The Jersey Shore, or a Kardashian, or a worthless witch like Rosanne Barr theirs. And if he were to undergo a late-career political conversion, a “a Thunder Road to Damascus” moment if you will, and say that ” Mitt Romney will lead us to the New American Promised Land of dreams that will not be thwarted…”, many of us would be more than happy to welcome him to the discussion. It won’t happen though.
Really enjoyed this article and, in particular, the posts. Much needed breath of fresh air to blast the bull chit that is rich fool notion of poor man/working man.
If Bruce couldn’t play the guitar, he’d be changing oil at a jiffy lube.
Nah, he would have toll collector on the Garden State Parkway, and already retired with a pension, living in Tom’s River.
I’ve also been a big Springsteen fan since I first saw him in 1973 and have probably seen 25 shows since then. And, I too have lost interest in him. As others have stated, he said many years ago, that he never knew anything about history or politics (and didn’t read) until Jon Landau introduced him to Howard Zinn. He’s said he won’t read people of any persuasion other than Zinn-like far left. It certainly shows in his music, his comments on stage and some of his other writing. Has he ever been interviewed by someone who doesn’t fawn over him? Would he be willing to debate anyone?
A few months ago he wrote an editorial supporting the Occupy Wallstreet folks and criticizing the bankers who avoid paying taxes. Unfortunately (for Bruce) one of his neighbors wrote a letter to the editor in response pointing out that at Springsteen’s estate (200 or 300 acres I think) in New Jersey he pretends most of it is a farm so that his property taxes are reduced substantially. I doubt any reporters have asked him about this.
If Bruce Springsteen really wants to give himself a little credibility as a working class hero, he might consider going to entertain the troops (true working class heroes) in Afghanistan or Iraq as Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, Trace Adkins and others have done.
Like many others, I’d love to sit down with Bruce and ask him some questions as well a give him something to read that isn’t from a Marxist perspective.