cs’ post on the music of 1970 has certainly stimulated vigorous and interesting discussion. One thing that is not a coincidence is the way in which music can respond to the feel of the time, and when at its best, articulate something of an experience not yet given voice to. Perhaps 1975 might be another contender for the best year in rock – if only because of the release of Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run. There’s a fantastic article in The Nation which captures this sense of speaking to the times:
If ever a rock and roll record could be considered essential to a certain time and place, then Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run was the album, and America, 1975, was the time and place. The moment does not get the attention that the blackout summer of 1977 enjoys as New York City’s post-1960s nadir (thanks in part to Jonathan Mahler’s Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning,) the summer of ’75 was, in my then-15-year-old’s opinion, the worst time to go through adolescence ever invented. To those of us who came of age during these cursed years, it was a singularly hellish time to be young.
The American Century was melting like cheap plastic left out in the sun. Watergate was over, but only because Gerald Ford had pardoned Nixon moments before the hangman arrived. Americans were no longer dying in Vietnam, but Saigon was finally falling to Hanoi’s advance. As US embassy personnel escaped from the roof, the nation abandoned those who foolishly believed decades of America’s solemn assurances. When the vets who did their duty did come home, no one wanted to hear their stories.
Inside post-Watergate, post-Vietnam, post-idealist America, the economic foundations of prosperity were eroding. Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, gasoline prices suddenly rose nearly 400 percent. More than 10,000 gasoline stations went out of business that year, taking a whole way of life with them. In 1974 alone, retail prices increased by 11 percent and wholesale prices by 18 percent. The Dow Jones Average plunged 45 percent in less than two years. The recession seemed endless, and hope for a better future, pointless. Economic experts argued as to whether the Arab oil nations or the Japanese would be first to buy up whatever was still worth owning in America. By mid-1975, unemployment had reached its highest point since the Great Depression, as real GNP continued its apparently inexorable decline. At home, the President of the United States was telling the greatest city in the world to “drop dead.” Another newspaper headline seemed to capture the historical moment perfectly: “Things Will Get Worse Before They Get Worse.”
As Eric Alterman goes on to write:
Enter Bruce Springsteen.
Thanks are also due to Chris for pointing me to an SMH article on an academic conference on Springsteen. Whatever else you think about scholars celebrating and deconstructing The Boss, it’s certainly true that he gave expression to a real American working class experience. Popular culture at its best.
I love what Alterman writes here:
Springsteen’s music pierced this misplaced teenage soul. I could never have articulated it at the time, but Born to Run offered me an alternative context for my life; a narrative where hopes and dreams that felt ridiculous were imbued with dignity and, no less important, a sense of solidarity. Most of my life was beyond my control, but my own reaction to it would be my own. I may have been stuck inside a town for losers, but dammit… I was pulling out of there to win.
I was of course neither an American small town resident nor particularly conscious of pop music in 1975. But it’s interesting to reflect that in the 80s, as soon as my friends and I discovered Springsteen’s anthemic rock, and also his darker folk influenced record Nebraska, it seemed to speak more powerfully to our lives than any number of New Wave haircut bands.
1975? It’s like your favourite orchestral piece being the 1811 Overture.
Tchaikovsky was just practicing when he wrote the 1811 Overture.
Eric Alterman and entire conferences of social theorists notwithstanding, Springsteen is on record as saying that Born to Run was just about a young guy wanting to get the hell out of Jersey – with Wendy.
Though, it’s a universal theme whose message echos down the ages, no doubt.
Geoff, I think that was Mark’s point.
I do like rock journalism that contextualises music within its time.
Also, where’s Amanda when we need her? Everyone should buy this Springsteen tribute album with covers by Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
Just recommendin…
Whenever I think about this song, I return to December 9, 1980, the day after John Lennon was shot, and Jay Cocks’ article in Time. Springsteen came on stage in Philadelphia and made a short speech:
If it wasn’t for John Lennon, a lot of us would be some place much different tonight. It’s a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do.
Cocks’ reported:
Then Bruce and the E Street Band tore into Springsteen’s own anthem, “Born to Run”, making it clear that playing was the best thing to do. Guitarist Steve Van Zandt let tears roll down his face, and organist Danny Federici hit the board so hard he broke a key … “I wanna know love is wild, I wanna know love is real,” yelled Springsteen, and the audience yelled back.
Tramps like us …
If you like that Mark you should check out Alterman’s Bruce book called … The Promise of Bruce Springsteen, something like that. Mikal Gilmore is also good on Brooce, a collection of his music writing, Night Beat, is worth picking up (also highly recommended of his, incidentally, is Shot in the Heart about his brother Gary, of mass murdering fame. Rather amazing book.) The Badlands disc is quite alright as far as these things go, Johnny also does great covers elsewhere of Highway Patrolman and Johnny 99. Uncut put out a couple of tribute CDs a few years back which were really good, Dion doing Book of Dreams, the Band rocked up bluegrass Atlantic City, Link Wray on Fire. A cut above the usual tribute mediocrity.
born to run was not the best album the Boss made.
his first lot were better probably because he was skinny!
Thanks, Amanda!
On Badlands, any cd with tracks by Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco can’t be a bad thing!
It’s Bruce day – listening to Devils and Dust now. Fab record.
Ahhhh, 1975 – good times. January, Fox On The Run, Love Will Keep Us Together, Mama Mia.
Not to mention BOTT! Twas indeed a great year.
tony,
were you at FXH place ladt night listening to his collection?
No, Homer, FX threatened to scone me with a Coolabah Cask if I arrived on his doorstep toting Ripper 75.
You’ve got me there, Chris. BOTT? Best Of The Twilights?
Blood on the Tracks, I suspect…
Hey, 1975 was a very funky year …with brooding undercurrents.
You Just Like Me Cause I’m Good In Bed — Skyhooks
Love To Love You Baby — Donna Summer
The Hustle – Van McCoy
Sky High — Jigsaw (‘The Man From Hong KongÄô theme song)
Get Down Tonight – K.C. & The SunshineBand
Autobahn – Kraftwerk
Lady Marmalade — Labelle
Feel Like Makin’ Love- Bad Company
Love Is The Drug — Roxy Music
That’s The Way I Like It – K.C. & The Sunshine Band
Fame – David Bowie
Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
You Aint Seen Nothin’ Yet – Bachman-Turner Overweight
Fire & Love Rollecasters – Ohio Players
Make Me Smile – Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
Jive Talkin’ – The Bee Gees
It Only Takes A Minute — Tavares
Ballroom Blitz -Sweet
0. Do It (Til You’re Satisfied)- B.T. Express
Piss Factory – Patti Smith
Fly, Robin, Fly – Silver Convention
Tampled Underfoot — Led Zeppelin
Ss-single Bed — Uffa Fox
And oh yeah…Bohemian Rhapsody
Dunno about y’all but all that takes me back to my first school dances and slinking v. underage into nightclubs.
Nab, that brings ‘em back. But Ss-Single Bed was by Noosha Fox.
Uffa made Ff-films in Germany.
Kung Fu Fighting – Carl Douglas
Brings em back? Oh, remembered pain.