Mixtape Challenge: An American Tail – Songs from Bruce Springsteen Over the Last 40 years

 

Link to playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4NNLEXrPXclY1n221y2Q89?si=482fea3e08a3425e

This month’s mixtape challenge for Playlist Pandemonium was to create a mixtape of American songs. As it turns out, the Music Snobs League I am in was also doing a draft of Bruce Springsteen songs. So, since we didn’t have a volunteer for the Mixtape Challenge, I thought I would kill two birds with one stone, sort of. The Mixtape I made has 11 of the 20 songs that I selected that focus on the American Experience.

I think Springsteen has always been a polarizing figure in music. Generally, you like him, or you don’t. In this age of partisan raging, anyone on the conservative right now must hate him because they’ve been programed to hate everything left, just as everyone on the left has been programmed to hate, I don’t know, Kid Rock, I guess.

I am not here to parse politics. Bruce’s politics are clear, but his music has spent the last 40 years capturing the messiness that is America. It drips often with the bittersweet nostalgia that Americans love but balances it with the undertones that much of that nostalgia is fantasy rather than reality. Whether it’s the angst between one generation and the next, the costs of war on citizens, soldiers, and our trust in our government, or the social questions and issues that swing from one extreme to the other, Springsteen usually finds the words and tone to deliver a message.

Here's my Mixtape:

1. The River (Live at LA Coliseum) – 11:38 – I add this because the intro sets the right tone, and when the harmonica kicks in it just rips.
2. The Promised Land – 4:28 – I mean I think this one is self-explanatory.
3. Born in the USA – 4:39 – Still a song most people misunderstand.
4. American Land – 4:25 – The immigrant’s tale with an Irish sound.
5. 4^th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) – 5:35 – Here’s a song dripping with sweetness and nostalgia and Americana.
6. Devils & Dust – 4:59 – A song that asks what happens when you trade in all your values to get what you want.
7. Western Stars – 4:39 – Similar to Devils & Dust, this acoustic song laments the American West.
8. Last to Die – 4:17 – OK, someday we’re going to send soldiers overseas to die in other people’s wars.
9. Death to my Hometown – 3:26 – Ah, yes, how the robber barons have bought up companies and destroyed small town America
10. American Skin (41 Shots) – 7:22 – I think this one is obvious, too.
11. The Rising – 4:47 – Released in the wake of 9/11, this is a song of hope and rebirth.