#we were all going to see bruce springsteen because the father is obsessed | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

janiedean · 6 years

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Hey! I had never listened to Bruce Springfield before seen your analysis of Born in the USA and Youngstown, but I really liked them! Now I'm curious, but lazy, so I'm here to get more. *clears her throat* You are... a bad person? Yeah, that. I dislike you. This is anon hate. It's not an anon, technically, but you know in your heart that it is bc symbolism. Or something. Give me more Bruce? Please. I mean, YOU'RE EVIL. (But please?)

first thing: here, once I gave an anon the run-down on how to get into springsteen. you can refer to that post for in-dept ways of getting into bruce. u__u

other than that, I’ll take your anon hate (u really put effort in it hm ;) ) and raise you another rant let me see what I can do for you, since I have another anon in your same predicament I can give another political song to I can give you my to-go SONG ABOUT THEON GREYJOY AND HIS FATHER shuddup guys it is.

so:

youtube

PLS BE INTRODUCED TO ADAM RAISED A CAIN.

Adam Raised a Cain is the second song from Bruce’s fourth album Darkness on the Edge of Town from 1978, follow-up to Born to Run and way more grim than that but if I went into the reasons why Darkness was more grim we’d be here until next month so tldr, Bruce was having a fairly shitty time in his life back then and was working through issues and he’s always had a fairly shitty relationship with his father than he managed to mend before the guy died but in ‘78 he was Working Through His Issues and it shows, so that’s the context you need.

Now, on to the lyrics which are actually an excellent case of What Makes Springsteen Lyrics Tick.

In the summer that I was baptized, My father held me to his side, As they put me to the water, He said how on that day I cried. We were prisoners of love, a love in chains, He was standin’ in the door, I was standin’ in the rain, with the same hot blood burning in our veins, Adam raised a Cain.

Now, first thing not usual about this song: it doesn’t really have a refrain which is not repeating (sorta obsessively) Adam Raised a Cain which only makes the song darker and more anxiety-inducing because it’s not really structured like a typical rock song - no bridge, no refrain.

Then, we’re immediately hit in the face with the catholic imagery which will to you make sense when I tell you that Bruce is one of those infamous lapsed catholics who had Issues with growing up in it. Anyway: ‘in the summer I was baptized’ immediately throws you into the action because you know when the whole thing started (when he was baptized ie when he was a newborn most likely), my father held me to his side, so he was near his father who has him close (as it should be) but he saw how on that day I cried, which already gives us a clear inkling that a) baptism = tears, b) tears = suffering, c) his father = his baptism.

Which is then immediately linked to the immediately below sentence: we were prisoners of love, a love in chains, which suggests us that while they love each other their relationship is frayed and toxic and mutually not good, because they’re prisoners (negative) of a love in chains which they can’t get obviously out of - chains means you cannot get away even if you want to, so they obviously feel stuck with each other for how much they might love each other.

Then we have a short but effective contrast with the first image of his father standing in the door (inside his home) while he is standing in the rain (outside the house, so he doesn’t feel welcome) with the same hot blood running in their veins as in they are related and they’re both too similar to not clash (HOT blood).

And then we have the main biblical image linking back to the catholicism and the entire refrain of the thing - adam raised a cain. As in: we all know the biblical story - Adam is the first man, Cain is his firstborn who then kills his brother Abel out of jealousy and gets cast out by God with a sign on his head and a curse on his shoulders, but while usually when telling the story it’s all about Cain’s faults and jealousy, not about who raised him. In this case it’s obvious that the moral of the story is that Cain turned out like that but Adam was the one who raised him so he also had a part in it. So we have a title which is all about the father/son relationship in which the son turns out bad (according to Moral) but the father is also the responsible, and the fact that it’s always, sorta obsessively repeated throughout the entire thing only drives the point home.

Onward:

All of the old faces, Ask you why you’re back, They fit you with position, And the keys to your daddy’s Cadillac, In the darkness of your room, Your mother calls you by your true name, You remember the faces, the places, the names, You know it’s never over, it’s relentless as the rain, Adam raised a Cain.

Here we have: old faces (people from the old town), asking him why he even came in the first place before fitting him with position and keys to daddy’s Cadillac which means that regardless of everything he’s expected to behave just like his father even if he doesn’t want to and if their relationship is toxic and they want different things, but again you can’t get away from the expectations which in turns makes the entire thing even more toxic and nightmare-ish.

And that gets said even clearer in the following: ‘in the darkness of your room’ (darkness = negative, your room = his old room when he was a kid so someplace he should feel safe in, called by his mother = the person he should feel safer with/the parent he had a good relationship with) your mother calls you by your true name (as I said in the previous note) and he remembers the faces/places/names ie everything that belongs to his childhood and he can’t get away from because it’s never over, relentless as the rain and he feels like it’s a endless vicious circle he can’t break - and adam raised a cain, AGAIN. Like, it all goes back again to the relationship with his father that he can’t fix.

In the Bible Cain slew Abel And East of Eden he was cast, You’re born into this life paying, for the sins of somebody else’s past, Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain, Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame, You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames, Adam raised a Cain.

And here we open up the big guns because:

first he explains in two lines his whole Bible metaphor if someone hadn’t caught up to it yet (in the bible cain slew abel and east of eden he was cast);

and then links it to his own relationship with his father with you’re born into this life paying for sins of somebody’s else’s past which is actually one of the Things Not Really That Great About That Mentality Of Saying People Should Pay For Their Ancestor’s Sins: he’s calling out the fact that same as cain paid for his father’s original sin he has to pay for his father’s or he has to feel guilty for his family’s or his father’s and that he has to espiate them even if he has absolutely nothing to do with that. And it’s not a thing he has a choice about - he’s born into it differently from having had a choice about it. Which is incidentally one of those most horrible things about calvinism ever but this is for another time;

but then as we assume he might want to talk shit about his father, he goes with daddy (endearing term, not my father from the first stanza) worked his whole life for nothing but the pain (so he recognizes that his father worked his ass off his entire life just to get suffering in return so his bad/toxic behavior is also tied to a cycle of suffering he was thrown into most likely because he also had to pay for somebody’s else’s sins);

and now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame, so he wants something to blame all of that suffering on/to something so he can figure it out but he can’t and he does it in a useless way ie walking empty rooms;

again, you inherit the sins, you inherit the flames - you’re born with the sins and the flames which = hell = damnation, going back into the whole imagery of catholic guilt (if you can’t expiate your sins you’re going to hell) that is pushed on him since the day he was baptized.

tldr: in the last part he ties the catholic guilt we had in the beginning and links it to the injustice of having to bear expectations from everyone else that you don’t want to shoulder (spoilers: bruce’s dad was not too much in favor of him becoming a singer and it probably shows) and points out how it all ties together in a mess of guilt, resentment and ruined relationships.

And in the end, we could be done here, but:

Lost but not forgotten, from the dark heart of a dream, Adam raised a Cain

This is just one line basically before the last (repeated) Adam/Cain line, but it’s incredibly poetic and evocative because adam is lost (you don’t know he’s there) but not forgotten (you can never forget about him even if you want to) and he jumps up from the dark heart of a dream which is like…. very creepy and evocative and haunting because it suggests a dark place in yourself (a dream) where you feel most vulnerable and it always strikes there and never leaves you alone, and this entire thing does not reach a positive conclusion actually it’s an extremely angsty, angry song that was obviously Working Issues Out (he didn’t until the eighties) but which is extremely relatable because I mean I had a good relationship with my parents and I might have found it relatable once or twice I can’t imagine people who actually have a bad one or are lapsed catholics and such on.

Also it’s totally relatable to theon in acok and I stand by my case. ;)

#bruce springsteen for ts #XDD #artemisa97 #ask post #bruce meta

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