Analyzing Bruce Springsteen’s Music Through the Lens of Rhetorical Genre Theory

Introduction

Using the lyrics, performances, and audience responses of Bruce Springsteen’s music, I contend that Springsteen’s music redefines the genres in which it falls into and because of its uniqueness, constitutes a genre of its own.

Literature Review: Analyzing the Rhetorical Genre of Bruce Springsteen’s Music

Laura Conaty

Analyzing the Rhetorical Genre of Bruce Springsteen’s Music

• Literature Review

            The article 10 Brand Storytelling Lessons from Bruce Springsteen goes through the specifics of what Springsteen’s storytelling does. The author lists the many lessons about storytelling that Bruce Springsteen teaches, specifically through his autobiography. The list in the article makes it clear that Springsteen is an expert storyteller by pointing out the aspects to what he does that demonstrate such technique. This article provides proof that audience members see Springsteen as a master storyteller, giving him credibility in the storytelling area when it comes to his songwriting. The author examples such as “tell your story to a member of your key audience”, “include characters”, and “be authentic”. These are all examples of the author’s take on Springsteen’s storytelling tactics in his autobiography, but when applied to his songs, there are many similarities. Many of his most popular songs contain these same storytelling tactics, demonstrating that one of the main appeals to his music is his lyrical ability. This is an exemplar source, in that it does some of the analyzing I am doing but focuses on Springsteen’s autobiography instead of songs. However, it is a good piece to look at as far as understanding storytelling tactics of his that others have picked up on.

            In The Five Commandments and Bruce Springsteen by Shawn Coyne, Coyne gives us a narration of Springsteen’s life and how his work came to be. This article is helpful because it provides a deeper look into Springsteen’s work and the background and reasons for writing what he does. Coyne gives us the rise of Bruce Springsteen’s career in chronological order, explaining where each major album comes from and how they came to be. Similar to 10 Brand Storytelling Lessons from Bruce Springsteen, this article takes a look at what has gone into the work that we see from him. Instead of just analyzing the popular songs of his, he discusses specific events from Springsteen’s life, how they resulted in certain music he released, and how all of it together creates a story of his life, which is juxtaposed with the stories he tells in his music.

            For this topic, I needed to look at some of the rated most popular Bruce Springsteen songs in order to understand the appeal and apply what I have learned about his storytelling to the songs that are most well-known. Some of these songs are “Born in the U.S.A”, “Jungleland”, “Thunder Road”, and “Born to Run”. These songs each tell a story through his unique lyricism. As described in the aforementioned article, each song has a background and a meaning, stemming from his life and personal experience, and resulting in a chart-topping song. For example, Nick Deriso in his article Top 10 Bruce Springsteen Songs describes “Born to Run” as a song that reflects Springsteen’s period of struggling to become an artist. He writes, “An accurate reflection, if nothing else, of Springsteen’s period as a struggling artist, ‘Born to Run’ has, over the years, transformed into a universally adored underdog anthem”. This is also a testament to the audience’s relationship with his music and the types of stories the audience relates to.

            Bruce Springsteen is famous for many aspects of his music, a prominent one being his ability to produce a powerful ballad. The genre of musical ballads has always been there. Many of the most famous musicians of all time, including Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston, are known for their ballads. According to What is a Ballad? From study.com, a ballad is defined as follows:

            A ballad is a type of poem that is sometimes set to music. Ballads have a long history and are found in many cultures. The ballad actually began as a folk song and continues today in popular music. Many love songs today can be considered ballads.

A typical ballad consists of stanzas that contain a quatrain, or four poetic lines. The meter or rhythm of each line is usually iambic, which means it has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In ballads, there are usually eight or six syllables in a line. Like any poem, some ballads follow this form and some don’t, but almost all ballads are narrative, which means they tell a story.

When looking at music in the same category as poetry, like this definition does, we can analyze Springsteen’s music by understanding what they are saying, and not just what they sound like. This is important because on a surface and more universally understood level, one might think that a song that is a ballad is just a song with a certain sound. This sound is usually big, dramatic, and slow. However, we see here that this genre depends on what the song is saying, or, more importantly, the story the artist is telling. With this definition, we can see that Bruce Speingsteen’s music falls into this category.

            The article 19 of the Greatest Power Ballads of all Time provides examples of popular music that falls into the ballad genre. The list includes some chart-toppers and greatest hits, including Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”, Prince’s “Purple Rain”, and Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”. As these songs represent some of the most famous songs in the ballad genre, we can compare them to Springsteen’s ballads to understand that his songs constitute their own genre and are not just classified by the genre of ballad. These songs are classified as power ballads, and each have a purpose or meaning, but don’t each tell a story and use the lyrical tactics that Springsteen does to set his work apart. Looking at the songs on this list, they each have very similar components. They are slow and dramatic and the artists sing about simple and universal topics, such as love, relationships, and motivation. By comparing these to Springsteen’s style, we can separate his songs into a genre of their own according to each poetic difference from these mainstream ballads.

Above are examples of two very well-known and significant performances from Bruce Springsteen’s recent career. In these examples, we can see many of the most famous Springsteen songs put into social action in performance, and understand further why they are famous. To learn more about rhetorical genre theory, how it’s defined by Carolyn Miller, and the way it helps categorize Bruce Springsteen’s music, see the next page.

https://www.what-song.com/Tvshow/95/One-Tree-Hill/e/4645

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118887/soundtrack

“My Hometown”, “Stolen Car”, and “Drive All Night”, are songs featured on the soundtracks of the movie Copland and the television show One Tree Hill.

References

Coyne, Shawn. “The Five Commandments and Bruce Springsteen.” Story Grid ” The Five Commandments and Bruce Springsteen, storygrid.com/the-five-commandments-and-bruce-springsteen/.

Deriso, Nick. “Top 10 Bruce Springsteen Songs.” Ultimate Classic Rock, 28 July 2013, ultimateclassicrock.com/bruce-springsteen-songs/.

Eames, Tom. “19 Of the Greatest Power Ballads of All Time.” Smooth, Smooth, 2 July 2018, www.smoothradio.com/features/best-power-ballads/.

Miller, Carolyn. “Miller’s ‘Genre as Social Action.’” A Collage of Citations, 1984, michaeljfaris.com/blog/2007/04/millers-genre-as-social-action/.

“Springsteen on Broadway Official Trailer.” YouTube, YouTube, 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1xDzgob1JI.

Starr, Evelyn. “10 Brand Storytelling Lessons from Bruce Springsteen.” E. Starr Associates, 24 Apr. 2018, estarrassociates.com/10-brand-storytelling-lessons-bruce-springsteen/.

“What Is a Ballad?” Study.com, Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-a-ballad-definition-examples-quiz.html.