Born in the USA?

No, this isn t about presidential eligibility -- that s being fought over by people much more qualified than me. I m talking about the song.

I was riding in a car with a much-younger co-worker when Springsteen came on the radio. She had somehow never heard the song (had only a vague idea who The Boss was, in fact), and I got to talking about how popular the song was, way back in the Eighties when my friend was a toddler.

The thing that has always seemed weird about that song was its popularity as a sort of patriotic anthem, which makes no sense at all when you actually LISTEN to the depressing lyrics about the mistreatment of returning Vietnam veterans. I told my young friend that Springsteen was lucky he was so poor at enunciating his words... people really just liked the one line they could understand -- born in the USA .