Fathers, Birth, and Rebirth In Springsteen Songs

Phoenix For Father’s Day weekend, we discuss two of Bruce Springsteen’s songs about adult life, fatherhood, rebirth, and birth: “Long Time Comin'” and “Living Proof.” Early in his career in songs like “Independence Day,” Springsteen explored the relationship between sons and fathers with a focus on his experience as a son. But later in his life, some of his songs, like the two discussed below, focused on the joys and fears of being a father.

“Long Time Comin'” and “Living Proof” explore some similar themes connecting the singer’s rebirth to the birth of a child. But although they were written less than five years apart, the singer’s perspective changes significantly between the two songs.

“Living Proof,” which appeared on Springsteen’s 1992 Lucky Town album, is about the joy and the celebration of starting a family. The singer tells us about his own struggles in life and about “crawling deep into some kind of darkness.” Through that, he sought some type of rebirth: “I went down into the desert city / Just tryin’ so hard to shed my skin.” Ultimately, he found faith and hope in his lover and the child she gave him.

Well now on a summer night in a dusky room,
Come a little piece of the Lord’s undying light,
Crying like he swallowed the fiery moon;
In his mother’s arms it was all the beauty I could take,
Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make;
In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused,
Searching for a little bit of God’s mercy;
I found living proof.

“Living Proof” was written after Springsteen’s future wife Patti Scialfa gave birth to the couple’s first child, a son, on July 25, 1990. As such, it reflects the happiness Springsteen was feeling at finding a happy family life following a period that included a divorce in 1988.

“Long Time Comin'” officially first appeared on Springsteen’s 2005 solo album Devils & Dust. But Springsteen wrote the song much earlier around the time of his 1995 album, The Ghost of Tom Joad. Thus, he wrote “Long Time Comin'” within five years of the birth of his first son and around the time of the birth of his third child. Springsteen and Scialfa had a daughter born in December 1991 and a second son born in January 1994.

“Long Time Comin'” is set somewhere in the Western United States (“The wind in the mesquite comes rushin’ over the hilltops”) out under the open sky. The singer in “Long Time Comin’,” like the singer in “Living Proof” is seeking rebirth: “Tonight I’m gonna get birth naked and bury my old soul / And dance on its grave.”

Unlike “Living Proof,” the father in “Long Time Comin'” focuses more on the future of his children, and he fears what his children may face. The singer is happy, but he worries that he will transfer his own failings to his children.

Thus, with a few more years with experience being a father, the songwriter of “Long Time Comin'” creates a character who wonders about his own abilities as a father. It is a weariness earned by experience.

Well now down below and pullin’ on my shirt,
Yeah I got some kids of my own;
Well if I had one wish for you in this God forsaken world, kid,
It’d be that your mistakes will be your own,
That your sins will be your own.

The lyrics written by Springsteen-the-father contrast with the lyrics written by Springsteen-the-son in his earlier song “Adam Raised a Cain,” which appeared on Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). In the song from Springsteen’s early years, the singer concluded, “You’re born into this life paying,/ For the sins of somebody else’s past.” Additionally, recalling his father’s pain, the singer warned, “You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames.” That son’s understanding of his own father’s burdens resulted in the son’s hope not to pass on those sins and flames.

In the end, the father of “Long Time Comin'” looks at his two kids in sleeping bags, and then he looks at his pregnant wife, promising that he will do better this time around (even using the f-word for the first time on a Springsteen record). It’s one of the most touching and honest moments in the singer-songwriter’s expansive catalog of songs full of honesty and faith.

Image of rebirth of Phoenix via public domain. What are your favorite songs of birth and rebirth? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Abraham and Thomas Lincoln: Sons and Fathers in History and Song

    Abraham Lincoln Reading on Horse StatueAs in the excellent movie Lincoln (2012), we generally picture Abraham Lincoln full-grown as the great president.  So it is easy to forget that he grew up as a child living in the wilderness dealing with normal family issues. One of the struggles of the young Abraham’s life was that he and his father Thomas Lincoln were very different.

    Michael Burlingame’s detailed two-volume biography, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (2008), noted that many contemporaries of the Lincolns reported that the father and son did not get along.  The friction may have been partly created because Thomas lacked ambition and disdained the fact that his son sought to educate himself.

    The young Abraham was not afraid to speak up around strangers to ask precocious questions, and his father would often whip the young boy for his assertiveness. One time, the young Abe received a beating for releasing a bear cub from one of his father’s traps.

    Lincoln Birthplace As the young Abe grew into a man, he continued to dislike his father. When Lincoln became a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, he never invited his father to visit him.

    And, when Thomas was dying in 1851 and asked his son to visit him, the son refused, telling his step-brother to tell Thomas, “if we could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would be more painful than pleasant.” Lincoln did not attend Thomas’s funeral or put a tombstone on the grave. Two years later in 1853, though, Lincoln named his fourth son after his father. The beloved child would soon be nicknamed “Tad.” (Burlingame, pp. 10-11.)

    Fathers and Sons in Song

    It is speculation to wonder how Lincoln’s relationship with his father affected his later life.  But the father-son struggle helps us humanize a man we know as an icon etched in stone. His father-son dynamic is not unusual, as sons strive to find their places in the world.  And this struggle occasionally appears in films like Field of Dreams (1989), as well as in popular songs such as Harry Chapin‘s “Cats in the Cradle.”

    One of the best father-son songs is by Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam. The beautiful “Father and Son,” which appeared on Tea for the Tillerman (1970).  Yusuf Islam originally wrote the song for a play that was never completed.

    The song is a conversation between father and son where the son tries to explain to his father why he is leaving. When Yusuf Islam recorded the song, he had only experienced being a son.  But by the time he did the following performance, which appears to be from 2015, he was a grandfather, giving the song new meaning.

    Bruce Springsteen has spoke openly about his own difficulties with his father Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen.  He has captured that complicated relationship in songs such as “Adam Raised a Cain,” from Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978), “My Father’s House” from Nebraska (1982), and “Independence Day,” from The River (1980). The latter song, like “Father and Son,” is about a son leaving his father.

    Springsteen’s “Independence Day” is slightly more bitter than “Father and Son.”  The bitterness may come from the fact that Springsteen had a rockier relation with his father than Yusuf Islam did. But it is also a heavyhearted father-son conversation.

    In the above video from 1980, Springsteen begins by telling the audience how the music he heard on the radio inspired him to seek a different life, just as Lincoln’s books inspired him. Similarly, as in Lincoln’s message to his dying father, the singer in “Independence Day” tells his father “Papa go to bed now, it’s late. / There’s nothing we can say can change anything now.”

    As Springsteen learned as he got older, the sins of the father also makes the man that the son becomes. So, for this celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, remember the man’s first years with his father. One may look back on Thomas Lincoln for his faults in the way he treated our beloved Abraham Lincoln. But the father, struggling to carve out a place for his family in the wilderness, did something right because his son turned out pretty well.

    Ultimately, the son Abraham, perhaps remembering Thomas’s lack of ambition or remembering his own beatings, carried his concerns for the suffering of others with him when he left on his own Independence Day and when he went to the White House. And although Abraham Lincoln had a long way to travel for his own education, maybe The Great Emancipator contained a little of the boy who saw a suffering bear cub and freed it, knowing he would face his father’s wrath but defying his father anyway.

    {Photos via: me, taken around the 1990s. The statue is located at New Salem, Illinois. The farm is the place of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in Hodgenville, Kentucky.}

    What is your favorite song about fathers and sons? Leave your two cents in the comments.

    Madoff Raised a Tragedy

    Madoff
    Bernie Madoff Mugshot

    Today it was announced that Mark Madoff, the son of Bernie Madoff, apparently hanged himself in his New York City apartment. His father was arrested two years ago today.

    There are accusations about whether or not Mark Madoff and his brother had knowledge about what their father was doing and whether or not they benefited from it. But it was Mark and his brother who turned in their father.

    We do not know what other dark clouds Mark Madoff was facing, but it is easy to see that his life was changed by the actions of his father. Add to that the albatross from his own choice to betray his father. Unfortunately, Mark Madoff’s children now carry their father’s burdens, even though Mark’s wife worked to lessen the connection to their grandfather by changing their last name. According to reports today, Mark Madoff’s two-year-old son was sleeping in the bedroom next to the room where Mark hanged himself. One’s heart goes out to the family, despite the suffering created by Bernie Madoff himself. I cannot help but wonder how Bernie Madoff feels about all of the tragedy he has wrought on so many lives, including his own sons.

    Bruce Springsteen has written several songs touching on the father-son relationship, borne out of his own troubles. The lyrics to “Adam Raised a Cain” seem relevant here: “They fit you with position/ And the keys to your daddy’s Cadillac./ In the darkness of your room,/Your mother calls you by your true name.” It is unfortunate that the sins get passed on from generation to generation.

    You’re born into this life paying,
    for the sins of somebody else’s past,
    Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain,
    Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame,
    You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames,
    Adam raised a Cain.

    In one of his most beautiful songs, “Long Time Comin’,” Springsteen sings one of the best wishes a parent could have for a child. In a single line, he gently erases the curse of “Adam Raised a Cain.”

    “Well if I had one wish for you in
    this God forsaken world, kid
    It’d be that your mistakes will be your own.
    That your sins will be your own”

    On this cold winter day, may your sins be your own.

    Leave your two cents in the comments. Photo via public domain.

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