American Midrash: Biblical motifs in the work of Bruce Springsteen Maria Diemling Bruce Springsteen (born 1949), regarded by some as the most thoughtful American singer-songwriter today, may be an unlikely subject for an analysis on interpretations of the Bible, but he has become an increasingly popular topic in a number of areas such as American studies, literature or gender studies. 1 Having sold more than 65 millions albums in the US alone, which have earned him 18 Grammy awards, he is best known for his distinctive type of American heartland rock that is often strongly influenced by folk song traditions. His songs are fundamentally American: His music and lyrics have produced a coherent fictional world of broken dreamers chasing a promised land that is tragically out of reach. Utilising his keen eye for cinematic imagery—two-lane highways in the middle of the night, screen doors slamming, rusting industrial landscapes—he has transformed cliches into vivid snapshots and almost singlehandedly reassembled modern Americana. 2 Springsteen describes a world where you pass “Sal’s grocery” (“Long Walk Home,” Magic, 2007), where the “streetlights shine down on Blessing Avenue” and where at “Frankie’s diner, an old friend / on the edge of town / The neon sign [is] spinning round” and at “Pop’s Grill / Shaniqua brings the coffee” (“Girls in their Summer Clothes,” Magic, 2007). This small-town America, however, has a much darker side. This is also a world in which “[y]ou can’t sleep 1 For a brief overview on some academic research on Springsteen, see Jon Pareles, “That’s Dr. Boss to You: A Dropout as B.M.O.C.,” The New York Times, Arts section, 28 October 2000. I am grateful to Matthew Orel for sharing with me his insightful unpublished paper, “From Adam to Jesus: Bruce Springsteen’s Use of Scripture,” delivered at Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium, sponsored by Penn State University, held at Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, 9-11 September 2005, and for reading and commenting upon a draft of this article. 2 Andrew Anthony, “The Boss picks his voice of America,” The Observer, 20 April 2008. However, it should also be noted that this appreciation is not shared by everyone: Anthony’s colleague at The Guardian, the music critic Alexis Petridis, is less impressed by Springsteen’s imagery: “Springsteen’s limited metaphorical palette has been noted before—he spent 15 years writing songs in which unemployed Vietnam vets called Gary tried and failed to escape their destiny by driving down the highway—but here the repetitions are highlighted by their proximity. A song in which the streets are cloudy with dust and flowing with blood, and the sky is empty and crying, is followed by a song in which the sky is cloudy with dust and raining blood, and the streets are empty and crying,” The Guardian, 26 July 2002.