Last week when Nebraska Lincoln Journal Star reported Bruce Springsteen being seen in town with a film crew, my heart jumped to the best screenplay: maybe he was working on a documentary for a 1982 reissue Nebraska, which is necessary for the treatment of digging archives. That beloved solo album featured Springsteen blending images from his 1950s childhood with grim depictions of Ronald Reagan’s America’s economic divide, with a haunting array of vignettes that seem increasingly relevant today. Nebraska arrived during a prolific period in Springsteen’s career, as he put together his eventual commercial breakthrough, 1984’s Born in the USA The outtakes are legendary – including a rumored electric version featuring his trusty E Street Band – and there are tons of unreleased songs from this era, too, like one called ‘The Klansman,’ which reflects his contradictory and famously misunderstood position on American patriotism. clarify. . So I optimistically imagined he would visit the album’s namesake state to spotlight all of this and provide fresh insight into an artistic peak.
Instead, he was filming a Jeep commercial called “The Middle” for the Super Bowl. It’s the 71-year-old’s first-ever commercial appearance, his first-ever product offering and, apparently, a project he has been creatively involved in. In the moody two-minute ad, Springsteen visits a humble church in the geographic center of the country. Only he meditates on what makes us Americans as we drive around in a jeep, delivering a message of hope to a country that, in his view, has strayed far from its original promise. “We can reach the mountaintop, through the desert,” he says in a gravel voice, reaching for gravitas. “And we will cross this chasm.” Ultimately, a message on the screen is about the ‘ReUnited States of America’.
If you’ve never been receptive to Springsteen’s patented rock and roll transcendence, or if you’re skeptical of the working-class fixations that helped turn him into one of the most famous musicians on the planet, this commercial won’t. do convince you otherwise. In fact, this may be how you did it always seen him: here he is preaching a vague message of unity while standing far from the real human beings. He is speaking to a promised land that may never have actually existed. It looks impossibly well-maintained, even if it wants you to think it’s weathered and worn out from years of manual labor. He sells you a car.
And even to someone like me, who sees his work as a complex and empathetic portrait of American life, the message here feels blurry – and worse, not quite his. To begin with, Springsteen has never really sought a middle ground himself, and the political outlook in his lyrics has never wavered. From the bitter class struggle in 1978 Darkness on the Edge of the City by the furious indictment of the Iraq war in 2007 Magic, he has shown us exactly where he stands time and time again.
Not to mention, he’s been fighting for decades against the co-optation by corporations and politicians trying to align himself with his hard-won integrity. When powerful people once tried to shine on the red-white-and-blue bumper sticker of a “Born in the USA” chorus while continuing to obscure the devastating verses, Springsteen was adamant about his refusal. In the mid-1980s, he reportedly turned down a $ 15 million bid from Chrysler to license the hit, and he turned down President Reagan, who yelled at him during a campaign stop in New Jersey. “The president recently mentioned my name and I was starting to wonder what his favorite album must have been,” Springsteen told a concert audience at the time. ‘I don’t think it’s the Nebraska album. ”Although he tried to laugh at such claims at the time, Springsteen was shocked: for the first time in his career, his work was beyond his control.