I’ve been brushing up on my Boss lately because the Dude is going to lay down the ties that bind Springsteen to the Bible in a couple of days. That a Very Reverend Clergyman could hold forth on this subject for a couple of hours on a Thursday night should come as no surprise to anyone who has given more than just a glancing work at Bruce Springsteen’s work. If you know anything about his life, growing up Catholic in New Jersey, it’s almost inconceivable that he would not wind up writing about some Old Testament shiz.
And there is plenty of that. From “Adam Raised a Cain” to the apocalyptic visions of “Nebraska,” Bruce Springsteen spins plenty of tales which prove the doctrine of innate depravity. Added to that is the secular armageddon of a song like “Your Hometown” which spells out the decay of the American Dream. The sum of these parts is a pretty dark vision of who we are and where we are headed.
That’s not the end of the story though. Even in his most dark moments, like the song “Badlands,” Bruce sings to the ones who “have a notion deep inside / that it ain’t no sin to be glad your alive.” In some cases, it’s not even a love of life in spite of the hardship, it’s a love of a hard earned life. Right there on the craziness of his first album is the moral of the story. When they ask Mary Lou for the dope, she says “man, the dope is there’s still hope.”