Add Aaron Lewis to the long list of people who didn’t initially understand the true message of Bruce Springsteen‘s “Born in the U.S.A.”
The Staind frontman, who has also pursued a successful solo career in country music for over a decade, told Tucker Carlson he felt “duped” by the message of Springsteen’s 1984 hit.
“Born in the U.S.A.” is frequently used by politicians who consider it a purely patriotic anthem, even though the lyrics are written from the point of view of a disillusioned Vietnam veteran.
“I think that he is a disgusting display of not appreciating what was handed to him, in this country as being an American, the success that he has had,” Lewis declared. “The fact that he duped us all with one of the most anti-American songs ever and called it ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ as some sort of celebration of how great it is to be born in the U.S.A. I’m angry at myself for not seeing it for so long and actually giving him, in my mind, the credit of being a representation of blue-collar America.”
Read More: Why Bruce Springsteen Wasn’t Happy with ‘Born in the U.S.A.’
This certainly isn’t the first time Springsteen has been the subject of such critiques. “I think why the song has been appropriated: One is because it was so powerful; two is because its imagery was so fundamentally American,” he told Barack Obama on their joint 2021 podcast series. “But it did demand of you to hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at one time: that you could both be very critical of your nation and very prideful of your nation simultaneously. And that is something that you see argued about to this very day.”
Watch Aaron Lewis Discuss Bruce Springsteen (55:00 Mark)
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