Bruce Springsteen Is America’s Greatest Conservative Songwriter, Part VI: The Hearts That’ve Been Broken Stand As The Price You Pay

In the world of Rock and Roll, in the words of Neil Young, “it’s better to burn out than fade away”.

In the world of Bruce Springsteen’s music, when characters screw up, they flame out big-time – and usually take other people down with ’em.

In “Johnny 99”, from Nebraska, the protagonist – “Ralph” – gets laid off from a job at a car plant. He gets “too drunk from mixing Tangueray and Wine” – itself a major botch – and shoots a night clerk. It instantly changes his life; he goes from being a regular guy to a lifer overnight. His life is completely screwed, he declares as he’s sentenced.

Now judge I had debts no honest man could pay

The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and they were gonna take my house away

Now I ain’t sayin’ that makes me an innocent man

But it was more `n all this that put that gun in my hand

 

Well your honor I do believe I’d be better off dead

So if you can take a man’s life for the thoughts that’s in his head

Then sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time

And let `em shave off my hair and put me on that killin’ line

Clearly, the character of Ralph/Johnny didn’t preconsider his actions according to the long-term consequences one might expect from them – but then if Mr. 99 had merely thrown up and gone to bed, the song would be a pretty mundane commentary on the human condition. People do act in ways that ignore their actions’ long-term consequences, in ways big and small, all the time.

And there’s the point.

Another of conservatism’s key tenets is the idea of prudence; a conservative measures actions against their likely long-term consequences, and tries to decide and act accordingly.

They also recognize – as Johnny 99 did not, until the end of the song – the consequences of failing at this.

And among the many reasons Springsteen’s music resonates with conservatives is that the characters, for decades, illustrated the princple, in ways positive and negative, in a way that sounds like…

…well, real life.

 “Breakaway” is a song written for Darkness on the Edge of Town, but not released until it was exhumed for the documentary “The Promise”.  Amid a song that sounds like it came from a Roy Orbison outtake, the characters make all sorts of choices – most of them lousy ones:

Sonny abandoned his car last night

Had a meeting on the docks with a light blue Monterey

To break away

 

Sonny was playing all his cards last night

In a hotel room he dealt his life away

To break away

 

Now the promises and the lies they demand it

Let the hearts that have been broken stand as the price you pay

To breakaway, oh, breakaway, oh Ronde, Ronde, Ronde, Ronde Ray

To breakaway

A shot at a big score with some skeevy players goes…

…well, we’ll get back to that.

Janie slipped from behind the bar last night

Cashed out and walked onto streets rainy and grey

To break away

Janie slid into a car last night

In a parking lot she gave her soul away

To break away

Ideally, people act with prudence – soberly measuring the probable consequences of their actions.  But they have the free will to botch it all up terribly:

Bobby lay ‘neath a sheet of stars last night

His back on blacktop still warm from the heat of the day

From breakaway

Bobby went down hard last night

Saw a shooting star as the evening light slipped away

From breakaway

Now, the word “prudence” doesn’t pop up in the great rock and roll tradition.  There, the goal is to live fast, die  young, and leave a pretty corpse.  Pete Townsend hoped he’d die before he got old – 47 years ago.  Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain, Johnny Ace, Pete Ham, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Keith Moon and many others fulfilled the great post-romantic nihilistic goal of flaming out before they faded away.  And in the world of the romantic nihilist – the world of the solipsistic dreamer – it’s only the person doing the flaming out that gets hurt.

Which is something The Doors never talked about.

But there’s a reason the rest of the world observes the notion of prudence; nobody is an island.  We’re not self-referential little islands; we’re parts of relationships, families, a society.

Of course, we have free will; we can make the self-absorbed choice, just as did Johnny, Sonny, Janie and Bobby.  It’s the possibility that we have the possibility to make the wrong decision that makes the right decision meaningful.

No, it’s few world in rock and roll that actually have long-term consequences to be prudent about.

Which brings us “Racing In The Street”, from Darkness On The Edge Of Town:

I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a 396

Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor

She’s waiting tonight down in the parking lot

Outside the Seven-Eleven store

Me and my partner Sonny built her straight out of scratch

And he rides with me from town to town

We only run for the money, got no strings attached

We shut ’em up and then we shut ’em down

Tonight, tonight the strip’s just right

I wanna blow ’em off in my first heat

Summer’s here and the time is right

For racin’ in the street

We take all the action we can meet

And we cover all the northeast state

When the strip shuts down we run ’em in the street

From the fire roads to the interstate

Some guys they just give up living

And start dying little by little, piece by piece,

Some guys come home from work and wash up,

And go racin’ in the street.

Tonight, tonight the strip’s just right

I wanna blow ’em all out of their seats

Calling out around the world, we’re going racin’ in the street.

It reads like Johnny Ace, or James Dean; you race, you win, you crash and go out in a blaze of glory…

…until it’s not just about you anymore;

I met her on the strip three years ago

In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.

I blew that Camaro off my back,

and drove that little girl away,

But now there’s wrinkles around my baby’s eyes

And she cries herself to sleep at night

When I come home the house is dark

She sighs, “Baby did you make it all right,”

She sits on the porch of her Daddy’s house

But all her pretty dreams are torn,

She stares off alone into the night

With the eyes of one who hates for just being born

For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels,

Rumbling through this promised land

Tonight my baby and me, we’re gonna ride to the sea

And wash these sins off our hands.

Tonight, tonight the highway’s bright

Out of our way, mister, you best keep

‘Cause summer’s here and the time is right

Living fast, dying young and leaving a pretty corpse is classic vainglorious self-centered romanticism – things that conservatism philosophically rejects.  But in the real world – the world we all inhabit – failure to act prudently, to exercise one’s free will in a way that is self-centered, self-destructive and just-plain-stupid, harms more than just you.  And it’s time you, whoever you were, figured that out.

So that’s another reason Springsteen’s music resonates with conservatives; not just because the free will choice exists – as it does, for almost all of us – but because the choices you make, like the choices Bruce’s characters make, right or wrong, mean something.

Next week:  equality, and human nature.