Lyrics Part 3: The Saddest Song

The photo above is more of a joke now than any sort of triumphant pose. Springsteen songs of real-life Americans certainly didn't mean more because he finally embraced real-life politics. All that remains from the election last year are the haunting voices of failure, and none has touched me so profoundly than Springsteen's. Maybe it was because I loved his music so much, or felt like he was a pillar to rest upon. I played "The River" on repeat on election day last year, for no apparent reason other than I could sense the dread and wanted the nightmare to end.

Some people listen to opera and cry away their dramatic fantasies, I listen to Springsteen.

I come from down in the valley

I actually do, but that is where it rightly ends. I'm about as far away from being stuck in my home town, with my high school sweet heart and a deadend job, but the song still shakes me, especially the second verse.

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

The pain that is evoked in those simple words makes the hurt that much more direct. The last two lines sound haunting, but I am particuarly taken with the line, "and the judge put it all to rest", which instead evoking the celebratory moment of marriage, recalls a death sentence.

But until now the song just seems like a demented person's self infliction, his own stupidity kept him there. Then the bridge comes and filets me alive.

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse

It's surprising how full of loss and disappearing youth this song is, while Springsteen had just turned thirty. It's a theme he brings up numerous times, both heartbreaking (all of Nebraska) and oddly nostalgic (Glory Days). It's the image of the tan body that points to the natural decay of both the human body and spirit that gets me. That tangible girl as fleeting as the time he describes.

I started think of this song around my birthday last week, because it coincided with the election of last year. With that on my mind, I was shocked to see another Springsteen-worthy depression.

The rust bult just got more bad news this week asGM plans to cut 30,000 jobs. The reasons are many, and Rick Wagoner, the companies Cheif Executive, has cause for alarm. They are losing ground to other companies and are saddled with the high costs of labor benefits, mainly health care.

The future of health care in this country is approaching a level where major companies are increasingly trying to shake off full responsibility. For their credit, a successful business that doesn't pay 100% of it's employees benefits is better than a bankrupted one that can't pay anything.

Being liberal and having watched "Roger and Me" more than once, I find it hard to empathize with GM. Europeans have a much more comprehensive health care system, and have better unions. But there was an interesting article in the New Yorker today about vacation time of Europeans to Americans. We already know the facts: Europeans make less, have higher unemployment, but work much less. We make more, have lower unemployment, but work more than we have time to spend. Thus Americans have to pay more money for child care (to take care of the children), restaurants (because people don't cook as much as they used to). This has spawned a whole service industry which employees millions of immigrants and people without much education. Where in Europe the service industry is much smaller, these people have less chance for a pay check. This is then tied to the riots in France, and how unrest has grown, all because the French want to work less.

I'm not sure if I quite believe that. But it sure doesn't make understanding any easier. And that's what makes "The River" such a heartbreaking song, because there is no deliverance from these questions. The haunting ghosts of the past reside in those lines, and they only get more harrowing as life progresses.