Born in the USA (1984)
I was much too young to appreciate what it really was, though
I remember the heightened energy of consequence. I remember
knowing it was special and that I took a nap, though I didn’t want to,
in the old Toyota van because Mom wasn’t wild about how late
you’d have me out. I remember the oversized American
flag backdrop behind the stage. It’s in Cleveland now.
I saw it in college and called you. You had thought it was
the Tunnel of Love tour. Maybe you wanted me older
when you remembered, when you began having kids
again. “I would never take them out like that.” But
we were both just kids then. I’m glad you didn’t know better.
I convinced you with the flag. How could you forget it there
behind him, like on the cover of the album you had. I had
the cassette. You must have gotten it for me—a smaller version
of your record. I kept it well after the tape player grew too old.
I remember, in the darkness, when he left the stage,
the tiny flicker of the lighters opening out over the audience.
You explained that they weren’t booing, they were calling to him.
Come back to us. Don’t go.
I remember more than I should. I often played that cassette to myself.
| MacAdam Smith |
|
levelheaded: Born in the USA (1984)
MacAdam Smith’s “Born in the USA (1984)” is a straightforward narrative in which an adult reminisces about a Springsteen concert he attended as a boy. Despite the fact that the poem is addressed to the speaker’s father, the word “I” appears 16 times. Typically, this kind of self-indulgence is off-putting for a reader. In this case, however, the author’s willingness to explore uncomfortable places within himself tenderizes his audience like a sea of swaying lighter flames.
The final word of the first line of the poem, “though,” serves as a conjunction linking lack of appreciation with consequence. The strained relationships that frame the narrative are delicately created by precise details: “Mom wasn’t wild about how late / you’d have me out”; “when you began having kids / again”; “we were both just kids then.” The most telling detail of all is the fact that, years later, the speaker’s dad forgot the name of the concert tour. What the father remembered as the Tunnel of Love was really Born in the USA.
Thus, we come to one of the many things that this poem might be about: that love—especially when kids are involved—bears consequences. And that, here in the U.S. of A., where there’s a 100% chance that your dad will die and a 50% chance he’ll part with your mom, children cry out to fathers just as fans beg the Boss, “Come back to us. Don’t go.”
It’s worth considering the musicality of any poem that steals its title from an album, and significantly, this final plea, “Don’t go,” marks the only long vowel at the end of a line since the “though” of line one. Nearly every other line in between these two ends with a consonant sound. The impact of this structure is that the poem stays compressed, self-contained, and complimentary to the inward searching of its author. For this brief moment in the penultimate line, it cries out. But, in the end, with the closing consonant sounds and lonely meaning of its final word, the poem sucks back into itself like a lighter at the end of the show, like a boy distant from his father, like a writer who’s no longer writing.
– The Editors
