On 11/12/2014 reiki604 said: Born in the USA was used by Ronald Reagan's campaign. Bruce has stated he never understood why and supposed they never actually listened to the lyrics.
In 1984, during his campaign for the presidency, Ronald Reagan used the song briefly as a campaign song. Reagan was quoted as saying, "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside our hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about." Springsteen, a devout liberal, had the Reagan campaign stop using his song.
Walter Mondale, Reagan's Democratic opponent, quickly seized on the opportunity and said Bruce supported him for president. Springsteen's manager, John Landau, issued a quick denial, and the Mondale camp issued an apology and correction. Either way, it was hardly a campaign-turning event, as Reagan went on to carry a record 49 states in November of 1984.
To this day, "Born in the U.S.A." is construed as a "pro-America" tune. Like it or not, the song is very catchy. Part of the song's confusion probably lies in the unintelligibleness of Bruce's voice and the singing of the song's lyrics. His voice is strong and passionate, but many of the words are garbled and hard to decipher. But whereas the song is hard to understand, the catchy repeated lyric "Born in the U.S.A." is clear as a bell.
Critic Marcus Greil says about "Born in the U.S.A.": "Clearly the key to Bruce's popularity is in a misunderstanding. He is a tribute to the fact that people hear what they want to hear." Bruce, seemingly a genuinely nice guy, is still a bit angry about the song's misunderstood intention to this day. He considers the song one of his best, but it bothers him that it is so widely misunderstood.
Says The Boss: "In my songs, the spiritual part, the hope part, is in the choruses. The blues, your daily realities, are in the details of the verses. The spiritual comes out in the choruses, which I get from Gospel music and the church." He is very clear in his statement about "Born in the U.S.A." Far from being a happy, peppy "rah-rah America" song, the song has a much darker side.
Bruce elaborates: "'Born in the U.S.A' is about a working class man [in the midst of a] spiritual crisis, in which a man is left lost …it's like he has nothing left to tie him to society anymore. He's isolated from the government, isolated from his family, to the point where nothing makes sense."
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