Labour & Pop Culture: The River

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “The River” by Bruce Springsteen. The song traces the experience of Springsteen’s sister and brother-in-law and, in doing so, gives us a window on life in middle America in the late 1970s.

On the surface, the song is about an unplanned pregnancy and how it defines the rest of the singer’s life:

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

But if you look a bit deeper, you’ll see the singer also noting how local culture (“”They bring you up to do like your daddy done”) and economic trends (“I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company/But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy”) can create a set of interlocking conditions that trap working class people.

The River in the song is a metaphor for the singer’s dreams, which are often out of step with his reality:

Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry 

The river is a good example of the heartland rock that became so popular in the 1980s (e.g., John Cougar Mellencamp, Steve Earle, Melissa Etheridge) that used straight ahead rock to talk about the lived experiences of blue collar America.

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done

Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important

Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take

Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true

Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry

That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride

-- Bob Barnetson