Bruce Springsteen’s Appeal to Conscience « InterACT

Bruce Springsteen’s Appeal to Conscience « InterACT:

Bruce Springsteen’s Appeal to Conscience

by David B. Cohen

Bruce Springsteen (image by GabboT, used by permission, via Flickr)

Tonight, I’ll be among the thousands of fans attending the Bruce Springsteen show at the HP Pavilion in San Jose.  As often happens before I go to a concert, I’ve been listening to the latest release, familiarizing myself with the new stuff and getting psyched up to sing along and enjoy the show.
Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball, opens with “We Take Care of Our Own,” a song with a driving rhythm and bright tone.  It brings to mind one of the Boss’s greatest hits from my high school days, “Born in the U.S.A.”  - not so much for musical reasons, though that’s part of it.
“Born in the U.S.A.” had a certain anthemic pulse and passionate insistence that belied the cynicism, doubt