30 Years Ago Today

I bought Born in the USA when it came out; I was 11 years old and this seemed to me to be the only real 'rock n roll' record out there that I knew about at the time. I can still remember playing it over and over - I loved the bombast of the title track, and I LOVED 'Dancing in the Dark', - still do to this day. The track that still gets me choked up, and I can still picture where I was sitting when I first heard it, is 'Bobby Jean'.  Funeral slice of funeral slices. But for some reason, in a move that did not fit in my later musical personality at all, it never really occurred to me to get Bruce's other records. I wore the HELL outta Born in the USA (still have the cassette) but it never occurred to me to pick up anything else. Many, many years later Op gave me a mix tape of Bruce cuts (remember mix tapes?). I remember riding the Dog down to Charlottesville and I had it in my walkman, kinda listening, not really paying attention etc and then a song called 'Livin On the Edge of the World' came on.  And just like that, I was in love.  - XMASTIME

30 years ago today, Born in the USA was released.

Now, for a few years up to this point Bruce has been playing Born in the USA in what some consider it's original form, the solo 12-string slide guitar version that was meant for Nebraska. So when between songs Bruce started talking about the war and I picked up that he was gonna play the song, I kinda thought "piss break." But he was talking about the mistake we were making, and then a fucking vein almost popped out of his forehead and he said "This is a song called Born in the USA" and Max' snare snapped and what followed was one of the angriest 5-6 minutes I've ever seen in a show before or since. Dude spit every word. And it wasn't cute, and nobody sang along, and it wasn't "anthemic." It's the song I most remember from that show, and it was bone-shattering. Like it was meant to be. Like it always was.  - XMASTIME

Story about the hat on the album cover HERE.

George Will STILL FUCKING SUCKS.

And I still can't believe that it never occurred to anybody to insinuate that, thanks to Bruce's right arm, he was pissing on the flag.