Bruce Springsteen’s songs have long been misappropriated and reinterpreted, as was the case with the anti-Vietnam “Born in the USA.”
The same was true of the song “My City of Ruins,” off his 2002 album “The Rising.”
The song was threaded through out the recent Democratic National Convention inspiring hope as they introduced each new talking point from their agenda.
But according to the Boss himself, it was originally about the economic hardships of Springsteen’s hometown, Asbury Park, NJ, which had fallen into disrepair.
Later used to inspire the rebuilding effort in post-Katrina New Orleans and post-9/11 New York, it seems apropos again in light of the rioting that has laid waste to several major urban landscapes in America, including Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Chicago.
The riots were not mentioned at the DNC convention.
