Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream. ed. by Kenneth Womack et al. (review)

David Harvey once summarized Karl Marx’s groundbreaking methods by using an analogy of multiple windows

“from which we can look in upon the inner structure of capitalism. The view from any one window is flat and lacks perspective. When we move to another window we can see things that were formerly hidden from view. Armed with that knowledge, we can reinterpret and reconstitute our understanding of what we saw through the first window, giving it greater depth and perspective. By moving from window to window and carefully recording what we see, we come closer and closer to understanding capitalist society and all of its inherent contradictions.”

(David Harvey, The Limits to Capital [New York: Verso, 2006], 2.)

Replace “capitalism” and “capitalist society” with “Bruce Springsteen” and you’ve got a fitting encapsulation of this timely Ashgate release, Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream. Between its covers, fourteen diverse writers look in upon “the Boss” (as Springsteen is known) through a variety of scholarly lenses, such that by the end of the volume, the reader has certainly come closer to understanding Springsteen and the inherent contradictions of his career in popular music, which now spans more than three decades.

The book’s strength lies precisely in this diversity of vantage points. Divided into four parts, it tackles American identity, gender, religion, and ethics, while mixing Springsteen’s lyrics with scholarly evidence to supports claims about how we understand and interpret such durable issues as the Vietnam conflict, Old Testament stories, and the promise of the American automobile. Representing the overlapping proclivities of cultural studies programs, the authors array insights from diverse authorities including Martha Nussbaum, Hannah Arendt, Max Weber, and even Karl Marx. The reader who consumes the entire interdisciplinary book stands to learn much about the musician, his work, and how researchers from many corners of the academy contribute to the big tent of popluar music studies.

As an example of the interesting scholarship happening in popular music studies, the collection begins with David N. Gellman’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town: Springsteen, Richard Ford, and the American Dream,” an essay that constructs a dialog centered on class conflict and urban decay while demonstrating how both Springsteen and author Richard Ford have relied on imagery derived from western American landscapes and Independence Day (July 4). This extensive survey of Springsteen’s work stands in contradistinction to the following article, “Dead Man’s Town: ‘Born in the USA,’ Social History, and Working-Class Identity” by Jefferson Cowie and Lauren Boehm, which focuses tightly on just one song (“Born in the USA”) to speak, again, about class as well as American identity. This opening pair is exemplary of the way in which these authors have created opportunities for productive cross-talk, both within and among the book’s four parts; many similar groupings could be constructed. Situated somewhere between this pair, in terms of the amount of material surveyed, is Liza Zitelli’s essay, “‘Come to the Door, Ma’: Mothers, Women and Home in Springsteen’s Devils and Dust,” which examines a full album, capturing synchronically one of Springsteen’s complete musical statements. The great diversity of scope among the chapters is pleasing and stimulating.

Some argumentative connections made here are more or less intuitive, as when Springsteen’s lyrical style is compared to that of Woody Guthrie, an acknowledged influence. Others are further afield but equally interesting, as when Springsteen is set beside Walt Whitman, a recurring figure in this book. There’s a certain charm to the essays that trace Springsteen’s lyrics or biography from the beginning of his career in the mid-1970s to the present, tracking changes in his political outlook, his relationship with nostalgia, and the complex and contradictory contexts into which he has inserted a character called Mary (or Maria...