THE RIVER (of dreams?] according to Bruce Springsteen

["L Spencer" <L.SPENCER@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[Apologies for the length of this. I will confine myself in future.]

In relation tot he revolutionary or utopian content of the past both
Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin wrote eloquently about the need
to rescue or redeem (the German word "Rettung" neatly covers both).

Bruce Springsteen has written about dreams in a whole heap of songs
featuring a cast of what Springsteen himself calls his "characters".
They are working class, mostly urban, mostly white. He foregrounds
the male protagonists but through them he also evokes an intense presence of several
female characters. His song "THE RIVER" opens...

   I come from down the valley where, Mister, when you're young
   They bring you up to do like your daddy done.
   Me and Mary we met in high school. She was just 17.
   We'd drive out of this valley, down to where the grass was green.

   We'd go down to the river and into the river we'd dive
   Oh oh oh down to the river we'd drive

The next lines state that he got Mary pregant. They had a wedding
without smile, or walks down the aisle... Springsteen tells a simple
and familiar story. His style in this reminds me of early Bert
Brecht, especially the Ballad of Marie Farrar. The story is powerful,
the poetry plain. The "river" is a real river as is clear from the
way it features in the rest of the song and yet it comes to symbolise
something beyond its own physical reality. Rivers and time have long
been associated. "Ol' Man River" may or may not be an "authentic"
slave song but it is surely part of the dreamscape of every American.

The music moves into a different gear. In a low voice, the narrator
sums up the years that followed his wedding (at age 19)

   I got a job in construction
   For the Johnstown company
   But lately there ain't much work
   ... on account of the economy.

   All those things that seemed so important
   Well, Mister, they vanished right into the earth
   Now I act like dont remember, Mary acts like she dont care...

Almost without pause, the song hits on a raw nerve:

   But I remember us riding in my brother's car,
   Her body wet and tanned down at the reservoir.
   At night on the banks I'd lie awake
   And pull her close just to feel each breathe she'd take.

   Now those memories come back to haunt me
   They haunt me like a curse
   Is a dream alive that dont come true
   Or is something worse...

   ... that sends me
   Down to the river
   Though I know the river is dry
   Down to the river tonight.

I think that that is a more than eloquent testimony. A fiction (?)
which speaks an important truth. And poses an important question? "Is a dream alive,
that dont come true?"

"Or is it something worse?" Bruce Springsteen, the singer/storyteller
has convincingly created a young man robbed of educational
opportunities, robbed of even the (dubious?) dignity of manual
labour, able succinctly to pose an important question. It is posed
here in personal terms. (And not too pretentious to say "existential"
terms) but it is surely related to the kind of experience that everyone on the left has lived all
through this century.

I have already mentioned Bert Brecht. To Benjamin's evident enjoyment
Brecht planned to satirise the Frankfurt intellectuals in his
TUI-novel. Brecht's imagination extended to the experience of
ordinary folk. Adorno, Bloch and Benjamin all wrote very clever
things about the distortions of working class consciousness. Brecht
succeeds again and again in distilling wisdom from the crushing
experiences of ordinary folk.

I dont think ALL of Bruce Springsteen's music is wonderful. Nor all
of his poetry magnificent. But if we are concerned about the dreams
which are alive in our world - we cannot dismiss all popular culture
as the cynical production of dream-factories. We should not ignore
the eloquence and integrity of a songsmith like Bruce.

Apologies for the length of this. I will confine myself in future.

Lloyd