THERE WAS NOTHING YOU COULD DO

Ambling biography of Bruce Springsteen’s most popular album.

Rock critic Hyden, author of This Isn’t Happening and Twilight of the Gods, was just 6 when he discovered Born in the U.S.A. At that age, he writes, he did not comprehend the title song, a bitter lament from a returned Vietnam veteran and the forgotten lives he and his comrades would lead. Of course, half the people who heard the album didn’t get that connection, certainly not Ronald Reagan, who wanted to use it for a campaign theme. Writing on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the album, Hyden argues that the album “managed to capture the center of American life”—a single album able to accommodate interpretations from all points along the cultural and political spectrum. No more. In this polarized and fragmented time, where Springsteen had formerly eschewed taking political stands, he now placed his bestselling record to the left, turning his back, perhaps, on a good chunk of his audience who take a more rightist stance. The thesis is unremarkable, but Hyden scores good points along the way. Some are of the cultural-critical sort, as when he notes that the album “represents the peak of the boomer generation controlling what was popular in music.” Soon after, listeners would fragment, with younger audiences turning away from classic rock and toward self-curated playlists rather than what MTV and the radio were selling. New attitudes were also emerging: Hyden contrasts Springsteen’s album with Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, with the left-behind jungle of Vietnam turning into the inescapable jungle of America. As for Springsteen’s one-time plea for togetherness, fuggedaboudit: “Outside the arena, the dream disappeared. All you had were the broken pieces of America.”

Fans of the Boss will find arguable interpretations on every page, but definitely a book worth their attention.