Episode 427: Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The U.S.A.' at 35

Whether you see Born In The U.S.A. as Springsteen’s most significant achievement as an artist or just a strange, 80’s sounding outlier in an otherwise muscular catalog, it remains to this day one of the most potent statements about the down-and-out in America ever made.

Despite its rock ‘n’ roll sheen, misunderstood rallying cries, and anthems to nostalgia, Born In The U.S.A. was a hopelessly bleak look at what it meant to be an American in the wake of the Vietnam War that, thirty-five years later, still resonates across generations, class, and race. A monument to the ‘everyman,’ it marked the end of an era for Springsteen that, despite its darkness, finally launched him into the pop stratosphere that he and the E Street Band had been chasing for more than a decade.

On an all-new Discologist, we’re dissecting this classic to get to the heart of its persistent relevance today, how it shapes the long-view of Springsteen’s career and a particularly “moist” song that also happens to be particularly great.

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