
There Was Nothing You Could Do
Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland
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Narrated by:
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Steven Hyden
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By:
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Steven Hyden
About this listen
A thought-provoking exploration of Bruce Springsteen’s iconic album, Born in the U.S.A.—a record that both chronicled and foreshadowed the changing tides of modern America.
On June 4, 1984, Columbia Records issued what would become one of the best-selling and most impactful rock albums of all time. An instant classic, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. would prove itself to be a landmark not only for the man who made it, but rock music in general, and even the larger American culture over the next 40 years.
In There Was Nothing You Could Do, veteran rock critic Steven Hyden shows exactly how this record became such a pivotal part of the American tapestry. Alternating between insightful criticism, meticulous journalism, and personal anecdotes, Hyden delves into the songs that made—and didn’t make—the final cut, including the tracks that wound up on its sister album, 1982’s Nebraska. He also investigates the myriad reasons why Springsteen ran from and then embraced the success of his most popular (and most misunderstood) LP, as he carefully toed the line between balancing his commercial ambitions and being co-opted by the machine.
But the book doesn’t stop there. Beyond Springsteen’s own career, Hyden explores the role the album played in a greater historical context, documenting not just where the country was in the tumultuous aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, but offering a dream of what it might become—and a perceptive forecast of what it turned into decades later. As Springsteen himself reluctantly conceded, many of the working-class middle American progressives Springsteen wrote about in 1984 had turned into resentful and scorned Trump voters by the 2010s. And though it wasn’t the future he dreamed of, the cautionary warnings tucked within Springsteen’s heartfelt lyrics prove that the chaotic turmoil of our current moment has been a long time coming.
How did we lose Springsteen’s heartland? And what can listening to this prescient album teach us about the decline of our country? In There Was Nothing You Could Do, Hyden takes listeners on a journey to find out.
©2024 Steven Hyden (P)2024 Hachette BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Ellen O'Brien on 12-12-16
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I Don't Want to Go Home
- The Oral History of the Stone Pony
- By: Nick Corasaniti
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella, Jim Meskimen
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1970, Asbury Park, New Jersey, was ripped apart by race riots that left the once-proud beach town an hour away from Manhattan smoldering, suffering and left for dead. Four years later, a few miles down the coast in Seaside Heights, two bouncers, Jack Roig and Butch Pielka, tired of the daily grind, dreamt of owning their own place. Under-prepared and minimally funded, the two bought the first bar they considered, in a city where no one wanted to be, without setting one foot in the place. They named it the Stone Pony.
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Great content! But who directed this…
- By EmilyH on 07-20-24
By: Nick Corasaniti
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Trouble Boys
- The True Story of the Replacements
- By: Bob Mehr
- Narrated by: Mary Lucia
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Written with the participation of the group's key members, including reclusive singer-songwriter Paul Westerberg, bassist Tommy Stinson, and the family of late guitarist Bob Stinson, Trouble Boys is a deeply intimate and nuanced portrait, exposing the primal factors and forces - addiction, abuse, fear - that would shape one of the most brilliant and notoriously self-destructive bands of all time.
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Oh Sister!
- By Cherrybomb on 06-29-17
By: Bob Mehr
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Twilight of the Gods
- A Journey to the End of Classic Rock
- By: Steven Hyden
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the critically acclaimed Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me offers an eye-opening and frank assessment of the state of classic rock, assessing its past and future, the impact it has had, and what its loss would mean to an industry, a culture, and a way of life.
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not what I had hoped
- By Tom on 07-18-18
By: Steven Hyden
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Petty: The Biography
- By: Warren Zanes
- Narrated by: Warren Zanes
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise.
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Tom Petty gets some bio love
- By tru britty on 12-15-15
By: Warren Zanes
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This Isn't Happening
- Radiohead's "Kid A" and the Beginning of the 21st Century
- By: Steven Hyden
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1999, as the end of an old century loomed, five musicians entered a recording studio in Paris without a deadline. Their band was widely recognized as the best and most forward-thinking in rock, a rarefied status granting them the time, money, and space to make a masterpiece. But Radiohead didn't want to make another rock record. Instead, they set out to create the future.
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Amazing read but…
- By Alexis Feldman on 06-01-21
By: Steven Hyden
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How Sondheim Can Change Your Life
- By: Richard Schoch
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen Sondheim died on November 26, 2021, but for countless fans around the world, he is “still here,” to quote one of his lyrics. With acclaimed revivals of his landmark shows occurring around the world and introducing new generations to the man who transformed American musical theater, Sondheim’s legacy has only grown. What is it about such classic songs as “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy, “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music, and “Children Will Listen” from Into the Woods that speaks to us so intimately and profoundly?
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Putting It Together
- By 0 Stars on 12-06-24
By: Richard Schoch
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Life
- By: Keith Richards, James Fox
- Narrated by: Johnny Depp, Joe Hurley
- Length: 23 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Now at last Keith Richards pauses to tell his story in the most anticipated autobiography in decades. And what a story! Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records in a coldwater flat with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones, building a sound and a band out of music they loved. Finding fame and success as a bad-boy band, only to find themselves challenged by authorities everywhere....
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Ins and outs
- By Jesse on 11-07-10
By: Keith Richards, and others
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Chronicles
- Volume One
- By: Bob Dylan
- Narrated by: Sean Penn
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
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Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One explores the critical junctions in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities: smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough.
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Understanding
- By Charles on 11-24-04
By: Bob Dylan
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There Will Be Fire
- Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History
- By: Rory Carroll
- Narrated by: John Keating
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army exploded at 2:54 a.m. on October 12, 1984. It was the last day of the Conservative Party Conference at the Grand Hotel in the coastal town of Brighton, England. Rooms were obliterated, dozens of people wounded, five killed. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in her suite when the explosion occurred; had she been just a few feet in another direction, flying tiles and masonry would have sliced her to ribbons. As it was, she survived—and history changed.
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A Very British Point of View
- By CaitB on 07-25-23
By: Rory Carroll
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Heartbreaker
- A Memoir
- By: Mike Campbell, Ari Surdoval - contributor
- Narrated by: Mike Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Campbell was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the band’s inception in 1976 to Petty’s tragic death in 2017. His iconic, melodic playing helped form the foundation of the band’s sound, as heard on definitive classics like “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “Learning to Fly” and “Into the Great Wide Open.”
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Wonderful!
- By William Straten on 03-21-25
By: Mike Campbell, and others
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Revolutionary Suicide
- By: Huey P. Newton, Fredrika Newton - introduction
- Narrated by: C.T. Hayes, Fredrika Newton
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Tracing the birth of a revolutionary, Huey P. Newton's famous and oft-quoted autobiography is as much a manifesto as a portrait of the inner circle of America's Black Panther Party. From Newton's impoverished childhood on the streets of Oakland to his adolescence and struggles with the system, from his role in the Black Panthers to his solitary confinement in the Alameda County Jail, Revolutionary Suicide is unrepentant and thought-provoking in its portrayal of inspired radicalism.
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First time reading about Huey Newton
- By SciFi-Nerd on 06-27-25
By: Huey P. Newton, and others
Born To Ramble
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Reads like a college term paper
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