ABSTRACT

Bruce Springsteen is widely praised for his lyric craftsmanship, his keen attention to the poetry of the common man, and the quasi-literary qualities of his songs. As a writer, Springsteen pushes his language to the edge of bombast, melodrama, and cliché in a relentless quest for emotional authenticity. At certain points, however, he exhausts lexical availability, collapsing into variants of his signature wail. In these moments of linguistic agon Springsteen realizes the logical ends of his lyrics: to give voice to the voiceless and power to the marginalized; to celebrate youth as it fades into maturity and ways of life as they fade into political and aesthetic irrelevance; and to embody the inchoate affective promise of popular music. In contrast to the traditional rock-scream’s assertion of presence and potency, Springsteen’s wordless wails are the testimony of one who is staring into the abyss.