I’ll Shake This World Off My Shoulders: On Listening to Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” in a Truck at 22
An upbeat tempo of wildly commercial success, I cringe when “Dancing in the Dark” is played for the purpose of dancing. In 1984, Bruce Springsteen’s undoing became the background music of spin-induced vomiting in all the hometowns across America, something only maybe John Mellencamp had accomplished before. Even the music video features a young Springsteen himself, dancing in front of a crowd of thousands, locking eyes with an even younger Courteney Cox, inviting her onstage with a smile and a laugh.
Despite a score that incites an almost uncontrollable head nodding, “Dancing in the Dark” is overwhelmingly morose and somewhat pathetic. The music does not match the words, a costume pageanting as a distraction from the deeply touching and visceral emotions of what it means to be lost, confused, and vulnerable.
I get up in the evening
And I ain’t got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
Go to bed feeling the same way
I ain’t nothing but tired
Man I’m just tired and bored of myself
In his own memoir, Bruce Springsteen explores the contention he had with his manager over the song. After a tumult between the two, in which his manager demanded a hit single, Springsteen went home and wrote “Dancing in the Dark” the very same night. This was the last song on Springsteen’s seminal album “Born in the U.S.A.” Completed two years after all of the other songs on the album, it was about his struggle in writing the song itself. He had seen success before, but the pressure was on for this album to take off, to solidify his place in the music industry and make him even more of a household name. Springsteen was met with writer’s block, frustration, and the familiarity of being stuck in the same way “Born to Run” had expressed several years earlier. He was tired. He was angry. He was a gun for hire and the world had already taken advantage of him.
During a nighttime ritual car ride through the streets of my hometown, I found myself miles away from the place I was supposed to be sleeping, riding passenger in a truck belonging to a man I once loved. “Dancing in the Dark” was the background music to my vulnerability, booming through his after-market stereo system. I was 22, returned home from a failed attempt at a dream, hopelessly depressed, and trying to hold onto the relationship that was fading between myself and the hands at the wheel. “This song is sad,” I said to him, “It is sad and it pretends not to be.” I rolled down the window to let the wind work like tissue on welling tears, peering out at a once vibrant mall now turned dilapidated. He turned to me, his voice hitting the back of my head, and said, “kind of like you.”
And still now, when the song plays, I think of that night. I think of the dark and the cold on my face, how the digital clock burned green into the hours of the morning when I finally decided it was time to go to my parents’ house and sleep.
“Dancing in the Dark” reached the #1 spot on music charts and held its position for weeks. It was and still is Bruce Springsteen’s largest commercial success.
It wouldn’t take long for me to leave that hometown and for that man to leave me. Both carving me up in ways only both could.
And sometimes when I’m sad, I still pretend not to be. And sometimes when my little world is falling apart, I play “Dancing in the Dark”, reminding myself that beauty can be born out of the contention that forces you to explore the hardest parts of what it means to be human. Maybe the music does match the words, sustaining hope in movement when the emotions get too discouraging. There is no other way to start a fire.
Even if we’re just dancing in the dark.
