We Take Care Of Our Own

We Take Care Of Our Own in the opening track and lead single from the soon to be released Bruce Springsteen album, Wrecking Ball.

Talk of the new album has been that it is an angry record and one that has a focus on economic justice. Typical Springsteen territory then, for those who know his work well. And at exactly the moment when such a focus is most needed: not just an American election year but a time when major decisions need to be taken about the future economic direction of so many countries.

We Take Care Of Our Own is an American song. But its message is one that strikes a chord on this side of the Atlantic too. And the message is not the obvious positive one that you might take from the title, or even from the chorus:

“We take care of our own/ Wherever this flag’s flown/ We take care of our own.”

No, there is an irony in Bruce’s words. Just as Born In The USA was an angry song misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem, this is a call for justice rather than a description of a glorious modern day America. Because clearly, as in this country at present, there are many people who are not being taken care of by their country and their government.

In the song, Springsteen describes the current America: one where “The road of good intentions has gone dry as a bone”. And there isn’t any help coming any time soon; “There ain’t no one hearing the bugle blown.”

He then pleads for attention to be given to the problems of the unseen poor. “Where’re the eyes with the will to see?/ Where are the hearts that run over with mercy?” Just where is the compassion to deal with the problems?

But this is not a call for welfare, for hand outs. It’s a plea for jobs: “Where’s the work that’ll set my hands, my soul free?” The blue collar message is startlingly simple. Give us jobs and we will look after our own. And it is a message that even many on the right will agree with: work leads to self-respect.

The most important line in the song is Springsteen’s return to an oft used theme: The Promise. This is Springsteen’s description of the bargain that stands at the heart of the USA, where citizens will work hard and play their part in return for a decent standard of living and a good life for them and their families. But he has made clear over many years that The Promise has been broken.

“Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea?” he asks.

The latter part of the line is a reference to a song called America The Beautiful. (America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.) So the problem is not just all across the geography of America, it also refers to the brotherhood of the nation. Broken America?

At a time when so many families are struggling to find work, Springsteen clearly stands on their side. He wants the government, those with the power, to intervene, to make a difference. He wants them to take care of everyone in the country and to repair The Promise.

It has been suggested that there is another way to read the song. If we take the chorus to mean that the rich take care of their own while ignoring the plight of the poor then we get a slightly different meaning. One in which bankers pay themselves big bonuses while others struggle to eat. Where the city has money but the country doesn’t.

But whichever way these few words are interpreted, the sentiment is similar. There is no economic justice in a land where the rich get richer while the poor suffer. And that’s exactly where the song applies to the current day UK just as much as it does to the current day USA.

Are we all in it together, as our government likes to tell us? Do we take care of our own? Or has The Promise, the social contract if you will, been broken here too? In a land where unemployment is rising while top pay rockets it is hard to draw any conclusion other than that it has. The impact of public sector cuts has led to both unemployment and the closure of vital services just when they are needed the most.

Bruce Springsteen is a proud American who writes about life in the USA. His call for economic justice though is just as necessary in our country as it is in his own.

But who is making that call on this side of the pond?

Advertisement