For many casual listeners, Bruce Springsteen’s song Born in the USA sounds like a glorious patriotic celebration of being American.

Yet listen beyond the upbeat chorus and you discover the dejected life story of a Vietnam veteran who has returned from the war and found it difficult to fit in, readjust to home life and find work.

You can assume that President Donald Trump hadn’t previously picked up on these nuances but now that someone has pointed it out to him, he’s mad as hell.

Born in the USA came out in the middle of 1984 – the year that the eyes of the world were on the country for the Olympics Games in Los Angeles.

It seems that former President Ronald Reagan and his campaign team misinterpreted – either inadvertently or otherwise – the meaning of the song. Reagan name-checked Springsteen on the campaign trail but the rocker later distanced himself from the Republicans.

Springsteen has since used his music to focus on the struggles of the working class and has been more closely aligned with the Democrats, throwing his support behind John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Whether President Trump was aware of the song’s meaning or not, he did not fail to understand the meaning of the comments the Boss made during his current world tour, which opened in Manchester this month.

Introducing his 1999 song Land of Hope and Dreams in Manchester, which he had previously played at the inauguration of Joe Biden, he said: “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!”

If that message wasn’t clear enough for Trump, he carried on ahead of playing the song House of a Thousand Guitars. 

He told the crowd: “The last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me.”

“It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other,” he said before launching into a stripped-down version of the song on acoustic guitar and harmonica.

Before launching into his song My City of Ruins, a paean to his home town of Asbury Park In New Jersey, he said that the norms of democracy were being eroded. “There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now.” 

“In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent,” he said. “This is happening now.”

He went on: “They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.

“They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.

“They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centres and prisons. This is all happening now. 

“A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.” 

He signed off with a message of hope: “The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and, regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, ‘In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.’ Let’s pray.”

Trump had certainly got the message by this point. He took to his Truth Social platform to call Springsteen “highly overrated”.

“Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy – Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK, who fervently supported Crooked Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent FOOL, and our WORST EVER President, who came close to destroying our Country,” he posted.

He then went on to threaten Springsteen.

“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country…Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”

So much for the “free speech” that Trump can’t stop talking about.

Volume 53, Issue 4 of the print edition of Index on Censorship looked at how musicians are raising their voices against oppression. Read more about the issue here. The issue was published on 12 December 2024.