Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Love's On The Line--"We Take Care of Our Own" and Springsteen's Promised Land



           Tribal drums and a sort of air raid siren start things off—cries of danger soon answered by, oddly enough, a relatively optimistic guitar riff, a bold bass line and glockenspiel twinkling like starlight.  “We Take Care of Our Own” is a pop song struggling to emerge from disaster.  Well, that’s an optimistic take.  While the sound reminds me a little of “The Rising,” that's not the direction I hear because it’s also a rock anthem trapped in a whirlpool.

            Perhaps because he fears the stakes of getting it wrong, perhaps because he intensely feels the paranoia he wants to rail against, Springsteen keeps his voice relatively low from the beginning of the song to the end.  His story is that he can’t find his way where he needs to be, and he’s running out of answers. He sees losses he’s sung about before, but he’s not seeing many wins.  And as “hearts turn to stone” and “good intentions run dry as a bone,” he answers with an ethos any Springsteen fan recognizes, the walk the artist has long walked—“We take care of our own.” If nothing else, Springsteen makes the best albums he knows how to make and the price of a ticket promises the best show he can deliver, both the quintessential rock and roll concert and something somehow bigger than that sounds—“The Greatest Show On Earth” of his character Wild Billy’s circus dreams.  

            “We Take Care of Our Own” quickly becomes a song about dreams turned to lies (and some things worse) as the singer begins to name the places where America hasn’t taken care of its own—“from the shotgun shack to the Superdome.” Slamming industrial door percussion punctuates each example, and as it declares “the cavalry stayed home,” cinematic strings suggest all those movies that made us believe in another kind of America.  This sets up a musical interlude which leads to the crucial bridge, a series of questions searching for the right way to respond—for help and for direction.  

The lyric ends searching for that “brotherhood” we all know from Katharine Lee Bates’ lyric to “America, the Beautiful.” Springsteen asks, “Where’s the promise/from sea to shining sea/wherever this flag is flown?”  It reminds me of the way Marvin Gaye once sang the national anthem, turning it into a question about the country under which that flag waves.

            As an artist whose most iconic images are tied up with the American flag, whose career has repeatedly pushed for America to live up to its own promises, to truly be a land of hopes and dreams, it’s safe to say Bruce Springsteen’s asking a very personal question.  The song swells at this point with exuberant hoots and anguished cries of “our own” and almost whimsical “la la las”—the near cacophony sounds a little like every record this Jersey boy’s ever made playing at once, revolving around that question.  The only answer in evidence is the music itself, but even that seems to be in jeopardy.  Perhaps that’s why, aside from those backing vocals deep in the mix, the main vocal in this song never shouts out—Springsteen pushes hard on each line, but he keeps his voice down.

            Bruce Springsteen has never sounded more isolated.  As Backstreets’ Chris Phillips points out, “we take care of our own,” was a slogan tossed around by whites shooting blacks in the wake of Katrina.  “We take care of our own” is, on one hand, a mobster’s creed.  And, on another, “we take care of our own” means bailing out Wall Street. Meanwhile, the continued trend toward shipping jobs overseas, the shabby treatment of our troops and the movement toward privatization of virtually every governmental responsibility—from clean air, to clean water, to the postal service, sanitation, social security, education and even the preservation of the national parks—shows “we take care of our own” is anything but a Washington priority. Only naiveté would make us think it would be a motto for Wall Street.  

            So, I hear Springsteen’s song as both desperate and intentionally ambiguous because he knows enough to know he can’t even name the flag he’s singing about, the flag he dreams of. He has always said that his belief in America is rooted in a big-hearted ideal of America, a vision of America not everyone shares.  In that context, and in this moment more than ever before—the One Percent distracting us all from what really matters with insane amounts of campaign spending—the question of American identity is up for grabs. Springsteen’s entire career says his “our own” means brothers and sisters around the globe, but the job starts at home.  Toward that end, to my ears, “We Take Care of Our Own” puts the meaning of America—of government "of the people, by the people and for the people”— on the line.

9 comments:

Ken said...

You say "Toward that end, to my ears, “We Take Care of Our Own” puts the meaning of America—of government "of the people, by the people and for the people”— on the line".... yet you critize privatization and with that it's intention to have our lives as Americans run "of the people, by the people, and for the people"....not of, by and FOR the Government....I guess your point would be that we can't think and act for ourselves and therefore the government should run, control, and regulate all of our lives????Seems contradictory to the true American way and what our forefathers had in mind....

Dick said...

Bruce is wondering why this country still has problems after his Messiah Obama was elected to take care of everything and make everything good in the world. I'm sure Bruce can't handle the fact that Obama's policies have made things worse for America. What Bruce needs to realize is that there is no Utopia. There is no perfect world and the United States is as close to perfect as it gets. Bruce needs to embrace the Constitution and realize that "a rising tide lifts all boats". And that it may be sad or unfair but sometimes people get left behind. That is just reality.

Bob Cobb said...

Dick needs to start paying attention to
the news ....

Obama's well on his way to digging us out from 8 years of disastrous Republican policies. Please let's not turn back the clock.

Roger said...

This song, and Bruce's work in general, is bigger than partisan politics. Who is President is not what this song is about. It is about an attitude of the American people that has turned cynical and petty.

EllieDee said...

But there can be a society that really does attempt to nurture and support its population. No utopias. Bruce knows that, I think. I think he’s angry with himself “...when you realize how they took ya this time.” Earnest, smart people are the easiest to con, and boy was he easy. He’s had a lot of loss in the past few years, and my heart goes out to him. Anyway , it’s a GREAT record and I can’t wait for the album.

Danny Alexander said...

For what it's worth, Ken, I was thinking along the lines of the first chapter of Thomas Paine's Common Sense--government's role in the social contract as a system answerable to the people's authority.

Jimmy said...

As a Canadian observer of America, and a Springsteen fan I would say that the last few lines of Springsteen's "Long Walk Home" prove that you could never question his patriotism.

"The flag flying over the courthouse, means certain things are set in stone.

Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't."

big bad wolf said...

i'm not crazy about the song musically, but rhetorically i think it is brilliant. wherever this flag is flown, we take care of our own undermines the faux patriotism of the militaristic and the corporate. it can't be, the song says, that the only time it is important to take care of our own, each other, is under fire, for, if that were true we wouldn't need to fly flags except in battle zones. if the ethos of taking care appplies wherever the flag is flown then it applies, in the same life or death, don't dishonor, fashion in mcallen or detroit as in a battle zone. if the ehtos applies wherever this flag is flown, or by implication, wherever u.s. law is sought as protection, then it applies to the actions of multinationals wanting u.s. privileges as much as it does to city governments. both owe their people something. more, anyone who invokes the flag as an important symbol---hi libertarians---owes something to those with whom they share the flag's freedoms and responsibilities, a flag that is only about you is not a flag, it's a twitter account. for a mediocre tune, this is a great and brave song.

TheBarefootgirl said...

" We Take Care Of Our Own" The title cries out to us, his Tramps, and we know who we are, and yeah we're listening hard. Keep it angry Bruce because that is the soul of Rock N' Roll