People have been talking about this in the comments, and indeed, it is awesome:
And so we learn today from Mr. Brooks that “they say” (who?) “you’ve never really seen a Bruce Springsteen concert until you’ve seen one in Europe,” and then he tells us the story of how he and his friends went around Europe spending hundreds of dollars on tickets to Springsteen shows in Spain and France and they enjoyed themselves very much. The success of Springsteen is, apparently, some sort of object lesson in staying true to your (geographical?) roots, and not being too “eclectic,” or something, who the fuck knows. The column literally has this line in it: “Did it occur to them at that moment that, in fact, they were not born in the U.S.A.?” I don’t know, David, do Clash fans realize that London is not actually calling them?
Brooks’ “best theory” to explain the popularity of a man who’s been an international musical superstar for years is some bullshit piece of pop child psychology he probably wrote down in a little Mead notebook he carries around that says “bullshit pop psychology terms to drop into future columns” on the front. Also Brooks’ entire story of how Bruce’s success is rooted in his deep connection to his original roots and milieu completely ignores the stylistic eclecticism that has defined his career since fucking Nebraska (an album that is not named “New Jersey, Where I Am From”) but whatever. Whatever, David. No one cares that you like Bruce Springsteen.
Brooks has been advertising his special understanding of The Boss for years — in 2009 he wrote of how his first exposure to Springsteen, in 1975, marked the start of his “second eduction,” of the “emotional” variety. Springsteen’s actual influence on Brooks’ life and work remains something of a mystery, though Brooks claimed these anthemic tales of life’s losers shaped “the unconscious categories through which I perceive events.” I guess we’ll take your word for it, David. (“What could be less like a Bruce Springsteen song than a David Brooks column?” Roy Edroso asked at the time.)
Violet
Fixed to illustrate how I wish everyone in the media, and elsewhere, would respond to Bobo.
schrodinger's cat
Is there a bigger phony, than the lying liar Brooks, in the media?
scav
Who among us didn’t have the suspicion that Brook’s oeuvre was entirely untouched by a conscious human mind?
The Ancient Randonneur
BTW David, I don’t think Pink, or Floyd for that matter, “Wish You Were Here”.
Jesus Babbling Christ the man is insufferable.
Tripod
Morons like Brooks always assume Bruce wrote Jersey Girl, because, ya know, New Jersey.
Splitting Image
The easiest test you can apply to an American pundit is to note the frequency that he or she refers to “The American People”. You should also carefully disregard the political advice of anyone who sees politics as a stuggle between a left-wing faction and a right-wing one and can’t look at it any other way.
Apply those two tests to David Brooks and you can sleep easier the rest of your life.
The problem Brooks has understanding Springsteen is that he sings about American people, which is not the same thing as “The American People”. Brooks doesn’t understand the difference and therefore sees Springsteen as a fellow traveller. Springsteen often gives the impression that he doesn’t much like people like David Brooks, which makes Brooks confused. After all, since Brooks gives voice to The American People it ought to be impossible, or at least against the law, for people not to like him.
Maude
Why are all these conservatives jumping on the Springsteen bandwagon about?
It is like when Reagan didn’t understand the words to Born in The USA?
Splitting Image
If I ever meet Carly Simon, I’m going to razz her.
You see, I know that song isn’t about me.
the Conster
What I wouldn’t give to have Springsteen and a camera crew show up in Brooks’ office a la Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall.
AnonPhenom
Jayzus. First Christie,now Brooks. These phuckers really are like high schoolers try to get an invite to the cool kid’s table in the cafeteria.
AnonPhenom
Jayzus. First Christie,now Brooks. These phuckers really are like high schoolers try to get an invite to the cool kid’s table in the cafeteria.
MattF
I know it’s dumb to get all pissy about Brooks, but he goes to Yurp to see a Springsteen concert and writes about the audience. So, David, how was the music? Did it move you? Did you hear the words?
kindness
Brooks, he gets no respect on his own so he tries to drag Bruce Springsteen in to prop up his rep.
Yo Brooks. You couldn’t wipe Clarence Clemons ass when he was alive. You are still unworthy even though he has now passed on to the other side.
Napoleon
Hey, Springsteen wrote a song named and about my hometown and he is not from there (Youngstown).
@Tripod:
Everyone know that Bon Jovi wrote that.
katie5
When will David Brooks start whining that Springsteen isn’t being nice to him, a la Chris Christie?
burnspbesq
If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, then paying attention to David Brooks is insane.
Are y’all insane?
dr. bloor
He’s surely never going there, but I think we can now conclude that Hell for Springsteen would involve being locked in a small room with David Brooks and Chris Christie throughout eternity.
Misterpuff
Kurt says it best in In Bloom:
Sell kids for food, weather changes moods
Spring is here again, reproductive glands
He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say
He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say, yeah
We can have some more, Nature is a whore
Bruises on the fruit, tender age in bloom
He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
[From: elyrics.net/read/n/nirvana-lyrics/in-bloom-lyrics.html%5D
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say
He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say yeah
He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say
He’s the one who like all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means
Knows not what it means, knows not what it means
Knows not what it means and I say yeah
geg6
@kindness:
Ever since that Reagan kerfluffle over “Born in the USA,” the Boss does not take kindly to such efforts.
And how awesome is Alex Pareene? I have completely fallen in love with him and now read Salon daily again, despite my vow to boycott that site simply for publishing the lying and prevaricating Glenn Greenwald, the thinnest skinned man on the planet.
Nellcote
I wish Brooooce would put out a statement telling these cultural leeches to fuck off.
beltane
@dr. bloor: Being locked in a small room with Chris Christie would be just about anyone’s idea of hell.
PurpleGirl
@Maude: I think I figured out why Christie, Brooks, and others idolize Bruce. Bruce was being played when they were entering their teens and the liked the driving music and sound of Bruce’s manly voice. They knew that Bruce was considered to be singing about anger and rebellion and stuff like that but the lyrics don’t really mean anything to them. They could be poseurs and claim knowledge of social class that they really didn’t have and couldn’t know.
Bruce, of course, knows this and that’s why he refuses to acknowledge Christie at concerts. He knows Christie is just a grade A jerk (and more).
The Moar You Know
I know it never once occurred to Brooks that this song might be something other than the musical equivalent of a foam finger printed with “USA#1” on it.
MattR
So he would be an even bigger douche had he not listened to Springsteen?
@Nellcote:
He did a few months ago. He called it Wrecking Ball
Maude
@PurpleGirl:
That makes sense. These guys were dweebs then as now.
BGinCHI
Aw Fuck. Just fuck. So much goddamn stupid.
Ruckus
@MattR:
That can’t be it because he can’t possibly be a bigger douche.
Actually he stated it himself, unconscious. No wonder he has no idea.
Rosalita
and love the quote about all Bruce’s fans are in the AARP category. Speak for yourself asshole.
MattR
@Ruckus:
Maybe we’ll get lucky one day and it will bubble up to his consciousness
Villago Delenda Est
BoBo has been to all those Boss concerts, but he’s never understood any of the lyrics.
MattR
Springsteen on the streets of Copenhagen in 1988
Mike G
Springsteen is true to his New Jersey roots, which is why he is popular in Spain.
This makes about as much sense as everything else Corporate Tool writes.
Amir Khalid
To repeat a point I made when I first mentioned Bobo’s Boss column: Did Bobo ask even one of those Spanish kids how it was they related to an American musician of their dads’ generation, singing songs about working-class life in America?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I’ve been to Springsteen concerts in Europe. They were awesome. Where’s my fucking New York Times column?
Kyle
Except that while the rest of us listen to Springsteen’s tales of losers and hard times and are saddened, Brooks salivates at the investment opportunities from all that desperate labor that will work cheap.
Mattminus
I eagerly await his trip to Germany so he can explain their love of Hasslehoff.
Huntly
Wonder if it occurred to him that the Spaniards were just singing along and don’t actually know what most of the lyrics to the songs mean?
Valdivia
what is it with BoBo and Christie and all these guys and Bruce?
schrodinger's cat
@Valdivia: Me thinks Bobo has a man crush on Bruce.
Ash Can
Brooks’ Wikipedia entry mentions a wife, but no children. I consider this a good thing, for the sake of the theoretical children, who would be wearing bags over their heads and looking into changing their names in the wake of their father publishing such an article.
Rosalita
@Valdivia:
funny that, conservatives using a liberal artist to make themselves look cool
Mattminus
@Valdivia:
They’ve never listened to the lyrics but love the chorus of Born in the USA? He was the rocker of their generation who wasn’t fruity or scary or weird?
schrodinger's cat
@Ash Can: I think he does have a son, whom he has mentioned in one of his columns.
Valdivia
@Maude:
I see you got there first. Must read thread before posting.
runt
Mentioning Springsteen is Bobo’s way of saying: “I am too a man of the people! Look: I’ve actually been slumming, standing in the middle of a crowd of filthy, sweaty plebs to listen to that fellow they call ‘The CEO’ or whatever.”
I don’t think Bobo has listened much to The Clash, though. He certainly wouldn’t have dared to show up at one of their concerts. There would have been blood.
Rafer Janders
I’ve seen Bruce at the Meadowlands in Jersey while sitting one row away from Paulie Walnuts, but no, I suppose that can’t compare to seeing him in, say, Nice or Milan…
scav
@Huntly: That might be going a bit far. Often their English is more grammatically correct than our own. And they’re probably far more aware of the lyric contents that the locally bred suit seems to be.
Amir Khalid
@Huntly:
These are fans who know the non-album tracks well enough to sing along all the way through, and love them enough to make request signs. I’d bet they do know English.
Dave
They say you’ve never been to an Applebee’s salad bar until you’ve been to one in Europe…
Rafer Janders
Bruce Springsteen owes David Brooks a beer.
Roger Moore
@Huntly:
Absolutely not. It might point out to him that he hadn’t listened to and understood the lyrics, which is the last thing he wants to consider.
Ash Can
@Huntly: European kids love pop music, including American pop music. On their pop music radio stations there’s a steady stream of bright, bouncy, fun music with lyrics in a dozen languages or more. Most of the time they understand little to none of the lyrics, let alone any foreign cultural or artistic nuances. But no biggie, because the lyrics are secondary to the tune. Bobo embarrasses himself once again.
Maude
@Valdivia:
It’s a good question. I’m glad you thought of it also.
These guys are really weird.
Valdivia
@Amir Khalid:
yes did it ever occur to BoBo that 25% unemployment for spanish youth somehow also makes the lyrics resonate? idiot.
@schrodinger’s cat: @Mattminus:
manly man sings about salt of the earth–he must be wrong not being one of them so they try to appropriate him. I loathe these people!
J. Michael Neal
@Amir Khalid: He asked Tom Friedman’s cabbie.
Maude
@Huntly:
You don’t remember the Beetles. People all over the world could sing the lyrics.
scav
Can we next expect a lovely memory of how he once jetted over to Hong Kong for his Big Mac, stopping first in Paris to pick up the fries because they do them so much better there?
burnspbesq
I’m not able to visualize Brooks shaking his ass to “10th Avenue Freeze-Out.” It’s just Too. Horrible. To. Contemplate.
I can easily visualize him crooning along with “Keep On Loving You” or “Against the Wind.”
Mike E
@the Conster: I would settle for a sock full of manure. Or a banana creme pie…no, that’s for Friedman.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: Oh, thanks fucking loads for that visual…
Valdivia
@Huntly:
spaniards speak english, sometimes even with an UK accent. and as I pointed out above, given the economic situation these lyrics resonate *a lot*.
@Rosalita:
and they are trying to bully him into playing footsie with them, so unfair right that the guy won’t reciprocate their love when they embrace everything he rails against in his music.
Amir Khalid
Wow. 56 comments, and still no one has mentioned the real, subtle point of Bobo’s column: calling the America that Springsteen sings about a “paracosm“.
burnspbesq
Or, if you really want to get nauseous, imagine David Brooks croaking out the two high A’s that come right before the chorus of “I Can’t Fight This Feeling.”
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
We live to serve.
Rosalita
@burnspbesq:
Brooks probably thinks that song is about a bad winter
David Hunt
OT and my apologies. I get really hacked off at people complaining about what type of ads show up in the banners of sites like Balloon Juice as thee people don’t realize that the ads are based on what the cookies on their hard-drives tell the software they’ve been!
Case-in-point: I just had to go to the New York New York Casino to look up information (a valid telephone number) that I needed for an amended tax return. I reload the main BJ page and it’s crawling with NYNY casino ads. It’s not rocket surgery people!
Omnes Omnibus
I had right-wing friends in law school who liked Billy Bragg. Explain that one.
BGinCHI
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t You?
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: What in Tunch’s name is paracosm? Sounds like an episode of Star Trek TNG.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: Did they listen to the lyrics or did they just hear a guy singing manly-sounding songs with an English accent and assumed he was belting out right-wing anthems?
Ash Can
And in other news, the Texas GOP publishes its official platform. Forget flouride in the water; Texas needs lithium.
Amir Khalid
@MattR:
That was a wonderful clip. Thanks for the link.
jlow
After writing “Brown Eyed Girl” Van Morrison was forever precluded from dating blue eyed women, causing him to fall into a deep depression out of which he ate himself and became fat.
gbear
Has it ever occurred to Bobo that, in fact, he has never been a part of the U.S.A. that Bruce is singing about? Would it ever occur to him that life for most of the European audiences is closer to the meaning of that song than Bobo’s life will ever be? What a conceited stool.
burnspbesq
@Ash Can:
And from there you can link to a Fox News clip of Sheriff Joe in effect saying that he plans to defy an injunction that was validly issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and upheld by the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court.
Dear Attorney General Holder,
I think you know what action is called for here.
daize
@schrodinger’s cat: Hah! “Shaka, when the walls fell.”
Roger Moore
@Maude:
That doesn’t necessarily mean they knew what the lyrics meant.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
From the link:
Noun 1. paracosm – a prolonged fantasy world invented by children; can have a definite geography and language and history
fairyland, fantasy world, phantasy world – something existing solely in the imagination (but often mistaken for reality)
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: They knew the words. Also too, Waiting for the Great Leap Forward, for example, isn’t subtle about its message.
Arclite
Wow, Alex Pareene is going full Charlie Pierce.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Bobo does seem like he lives in a fantasy world of his own, where Applebee’s has salad bars and Republican Presidential candidates are noble.
SteveM
Anyone who doesn’t click on that Roy Edroso column is passing up an extra treat.
russell
Brooks asks:
“How was it that so many people in such a faraway place can be so personally committed to the deindustrializing landscape from New Jersey to Nebraska, the world Springsteen sings about?”
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man said son if it was up to me
or
I got a job working construction for the johnstown company
But lately there aint been much work on account of the economy
or
Well, I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
Maybe NJ sounds a lot like home to them.
Valdivia
@BGinCHI:
cracking up. thank you thank you thank you.
burnspbesq
Breaking news: Sullivan reinstated.
And the Queen shakes hands with Martin McGuiness.
An interesting day.
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: General Sherman “Marching Through Phoenix”?
A guy can dream!
Slugger
It is a little known fact that on the “Ballad of Tom Joad” cover it is Bobo not Zach singing.
P.S. do yourselves a favor and go to youtube for the RATM version of Bruce’s best song of the last twenty years.
burnspbesq
@The Moar You Know:
How about a NATO task force? “Spanish guns in (pause one beat) Maricopa” would sound good.
Amir Khalid
@Slugger:
Before anyone goes YouTubing, the song’s title is “Ghost of Tom Joad”.
burnspbesq
Sigh.
m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/26/shaking-queen-hand-martin-mcguinness?cat=commentisfree�…
Fookin’ idjit
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
My favorite Sprinsteen tune is the ‘Applebee’s Salad Bar Shuffle”
Bobo’s is “Mansion on the Hill”
trollhattan
Whenever Moral Hazard makes an appearance in Pierce’s blog I know I’m in for a fun read. This was more funner than normal, which is saying something. Today’s shreddinating of Claire McCaskill is brief, but deadly.
burnspbesq
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
The teenage tramps in skin-tight pants do the salad-bar dance?
MattR
@Slugger: @Amir Khalid: I’ll take the Springsteen version with Tom Morello at the Rock and Roll HOF 25th Anniversary concert. Bruce’s little speech beforehand isn’t too bad either.
Rock
And Paul Ryan listens to Rage Against the Machine…you can’t judge a person by their playlist.
GxB
@Dave: Beautiful! – Thanks for that one man….
@Rock: Okay I gotta demand a source for this because if it is true, it’s a sure sign of the apocalypse.
MikeJ
You know what might make me think there was something nominally interesting about David Brooks? If he revealed that he was a huge fan of Cleveland’s garage punk pioneers The Raspberries and had a huge collection of flyers and bootlegs.
To the best of my knowledge nobody has ever tried to score political points with a misreading of “Go All the Way”. They aren’t so obscure that you can get cool points from a band that nobody’s ever heard of. And they aren’t universally loved (like say, Springsteen or The Beatles) so you’re taking a chance that somebody might think you’re a dork for liking them.
Brooks would still be an insufferable twat, but at least he’d have one genuinely interesting thing about him.
Oort Cloud
All the paracosm Brooks can eat, and a tax write-off too.
Cris (without an H)
@Rock: And Ann Colter is a huge deadhead. (And so is that one warblogger.) “You can’t judge a person by their playlist” is absolutely dead on right.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
its pretty simple, bruce’s early ennui, or at least much of it, was based around the dullness of getting a union card for your high school graduation and things that by today’s standards are actually a jerk-off fantasy by comparison.
what springsteen provided conservatives through the years, as a cult object, was a justification that the people the cons were shitting on in rhetoric and policy were better off, or happier with out the security of the very things they were seeking to take away from them.
Mark S.
You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’m still in shock from reading burnsie’s comment that contained “squeeee” in last night’s late night thread. When I recover perhaps I can gag over a Bobo column.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
I’m thinking more of a Bob Marley approach:
I shot the Sheriff
But stand your ground says it was in self defense
Rafer Janders
@Amir Khalid:
I can see why this would resonate for conservatives….
MCA1
How David Brooks hears some Springsteen lyrics:
“Baby, we were born to run (at the mouth).”
“Tax breaks, you’ve got to live it every day. Let the broken safety nets stand as the price you’ve gotta pay. We’ll keep pushing this agenda, ’til this trickle down starts treating us gooooood.”
“They’ll let you on their shows, if you don’t stop pandering. They’ll let you be their mouthpiece, if you daily kiss the ring. If you pay the price, vast space for entertaining. You’re the con..de..scen…sion king.”
“Got a mansion outside Baltimore, jack. I write a column and I’m quite the hack. Like a river that just keeps on flowing; my bullshit stream, well it never stops going. Everybody’s got a Bobo crush. Everybody’s got a Bobo crush. Give up your unions and tune into Rush. Everybody’s got a Bo-o-o-obo crush.”
Mark S.
Bobo’s conclusion:
That sounds like excellent advice for Mitt Romney.
burnspbesq
@MCA1:
I’d guess that the Springsteen song that comes closest to capturing Brooks’ self-image is “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.”
“I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra”
or
“I was the pimps’ main prophet, I kept everything cool”
Take your choice.
Calouste
@Ash Can:
I didn’t know the Texas GOP was for the abolishment of the death penalty, but you learn something new every day.
GxB
@MCA1:
Blockquoted and reposted for pure unadulterated awesomeness… Raucous whistling and thunderous applause – “BRAVO!!!”
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@GxB: BRAVO indeed.
John Weiss
Buddy, you’re wasting electrons: really who gives a flying fuck about what Bobo thinks?
Steeplejack
@MikeJ:
Yeah, man! Love the incisive crunchiness at 1:40.
Jason
sigh
Once again, will somone please explain to Bobo that when the character in “Born in the USA” sings the line “I was born in the USA”, it in the bitter, mocking tones of a man who has been sold out by his own country — who sent him off to “Vietnam, to go and kill the yellow man”, and now that he’s back, won’t give him a job or help him with his post-traumatic stress disorder.
It is possibly the least patriotic and most anti-American song a European crowd could possibly sing along too.
I know, you know this. But conservatives, who seem to have trouble with hearing comprehension, routinely miss this obvious fact about the song.
Honus
@Rafer Janders: I saw Bruce in 1975 in Charlottesville Virginia. Sat on the floor of a gym about six feet from the stage. A young Clarence and both piano players were in the band, as well as the Isreali violinist. It was right after The Wild the Innocent and the E Street shuffle came out. It beat the shit out of any show Brooks has ever seen. Joe Walsh snuck in the back to see the new guy.
Ken_L
‘The most interesting moment of Springsteen’s career came after the success of “Born to Run.” It would have been natural to build on that album’s success, to repeat its lush, wall-of-sound style, to build outward from his New Jersey base and broaden his appeal. Instead, Springsteen went deeper into his roots and created “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which is more localized, more lonely and more spare.’
That would be a great point by Brooks if it were true. However ‘Darkness’ was released six years BEFORE ‘Born to Run’.
Does he never bother to check even the most basic facts?