Factories closing, marriages cracking, the glitter of the ’80s hiding a lot of hurt—Part 3 lives right in that gap between the American dream and the American day-to-day. Bruce digs into Darkness, The River, and Nebraska, writing about people who rarely get a mic: laid-off workers, young couples in over their heads, neighbors hanging on by their fingernails. Then Born in the U.S.A. turns into a worldwide roar, and politicians try to strip the songs of their doubts and their compassion. We end in East Berlin, 1988, with Springsteen singing to a divided crowd about freedom and walls coming down, and we ask: what if this kind of complicated, honest patriotism was the version we measured ourselves against instead of the cheap, loud kind?
Music in this Episode: Bruce Spingsteen (With and Without) the E Street Band
I Fought the Law - Live
Badlands
The Promised Land
Prove it All Night - Live from Hammersmith Odeon. 1978
The Ties That Bind
The River album medley: Point Blank/ The River/ Hungry Heart/ Cadillac Ranch/ I'm a Rocker/ Drive All Night
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