Last week, when Nebraska’s Lincoln Journal Star reported that Bruce Springsteen was spotted in the city with a film crew, my heart jumped at best: maybe he was working on a documentary for a 1982 reissue Nebraska, which is due for the treatment of the archive excavator box. On this beloved solo album, Springsteen combined images from his fifties childhood with clear depictions of the economic divide in Ronald Reagan’s America, with a haunting series of vignettes that seem increasingly relevant today. Nebraska arrived during a fruitful period in Springsteen’s career, compiling his ultimate commercial breakthrough, 1984. Born in the USA The recordings are legendary – including a rumored electric version with his faithful E Street Band – and there are also mountains of unreleased songs from this era, such as one called “The Klansman”, which shows his contradictory and famously wrong attitude towards American patriotism clarifies. So I optimistically imagined him visiting the album’s namesake to shed it all and offer new insight into an artistic climax.
Instead, he filmed a Jeep ad called ‘The Middle’ for the Super Bowl. This is the 71-year-old’s first commercial appearance, his first product underwriting, and apparently a project to which he has made a significant creative contribution. In the moody two-minute ad, Springsteen visits a humble church in the geographic center of the country. Only he ponders what we Americans are doing as we drive around in a Jeep and offer a message of hope to a country that, in his vision, has strayed far from its original promise. “We can go all the way to the top of the mountain, through the desert,” he said in a gravelly voice, reaching out for gravitas. “And we will cross this chasm.” Finally, a message on the screen addresses the ‘ReUnited States of America’.
If you’ve never been receptive to Springsteen’s patented brand of rock ‘n’ roll transcendence, or if you’ve been skeptical of the working class fixations that helped make him one of the most famous musicians on earth, then this ad will not convince you otherwise. In fact, it may be how you have always saw him: here he preaches a vague message of unity while being far removed from any real human being. He is talking about a promised land that may never have really existed. He looks impossibly well maintained, even if he wants you to think he’s worn out and worn out from years of manual labor. He’s selling you a car.
And even for someone like me, who sees his work as an intricate and empathetic portrait of American life, the message here feels vague – and worse, not entirely his own. First, Springsteen himself had never sought such a middle ground, and the political view in his lyrics never wavered. Of the bitter class struggle depicted in 1978 Darkness on the edge of the city by the boiling accusation of the war in Iraq in 2007 Magic, he always showed us exactly where he stands.
Not to mention, he has been fighting for decades to be co-opted by corporations and politicians to try to align themselves with his heavy-handed integrity. When powerful people once tried to glare at a ‘Born in the USA’ red-white-and-blue bumper sticker of a refrain while knocking out the damning verses about it, Springsteen was determined about his refusal. In the mid-1980s, he allegedly turned down a $ 15 million offer from Chrysler to license the hit, and he turned down President Reagan, who shouted at him during a campaign rally in New Jersey. “The president is calling my name these days, and I’m starting to wonder what his favorite album should be,” Springsteen told a concert audience at the time. ‘I do not think it was the Nebraska album. Although he tried to laugh at such progress at the time, Springsteen was shaken: for the first time in his career, his job fell out of his control.