In the 1980s, the American landscape was reshaped by recession, globalization and Reaganomics. As manufacturing jobs dried up across the Rust Belt and family farms struggled, a new sound began to dominate radio airwaves.
From John Mellencamp’s nostalgia for a bygone rural America to Bruce Springsteen’s anthems about the decline of factory towns, heartland rock was built around plain-spoken, earnest lyrics, minimal chords and rousing singalong choruses.
In her new book, “Won’t Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America,” journalist Erin Osmon argues that these anthems of the underdog are some of the most misunderstood songs in modern history.
8 questions with Erin Osmon
You use a term in your book, “timesickness” to describe heartland rock. What does that mean to you?
“The phrase was coined by a Kentucky-based writer named Silas House, and it’s basically longing for the way that things were when you grew up, a time when things were more civil,when people could coexist in a more reasonable way, as opposed to how deeply polarized we’ve become.”
You focus in the book on a “core four” of artists. Bruce Springsteen from New Jersey, Bob Seger from Michigan, Tom Petty from Florida and John Mellencamp from Indiana. Is the heartland that’s evoked in their music about geography?
“In the book, I map heartland rock as an ideological or a spiritual geography. Its music, its lyrics, its performances and its festivals advocate on behalf of working people. And the message there is that these folks are deserving of dignity.”
What was so special about these core four?
“The first thing that really strikes me about them is that each of them are pretty provincial, right? Bob Seger never really left Michigan. John Mellencamp never really left Indiana. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty are internationally beloved artists and moved more, but their ethics are really rooted in their backgrounds in New Jersey and Florida.
“Let’s not forget that these were some of the biggest rock stars of the era. And they were singing about home, place, family and simpler days. And that’s remarkable. It really stood in contrast to some of the bombastic happenings in rock and roll in the 1970s and the rise of hair metal in the 1980s.”
These artists were focusing on the ugly truths of life in former President Ronald Reagan’s America. The lyrics focused on pretty heavy stuff, and yet this music resonated with a wide audience.
“That’s kind of the magic of heartland rock. The lyrics were often quite heavy, but the music sort of belied that messaging. And so that made it genius in a sense that it could reach a lot of people through the vehicles of radio and MTV. But it sort of worked against the movement, too, because people lost the messaging. The music was so easy to latch onto and zone out to if you’re driving in your car on the freeway. It worked and it didn’t work.”
You say that “Born in the U.S.A,” Bruce Springsteen’s mega hit, might be the most misunderstood song in American history. How did an indictment of a U.S. war and its policy towards veterans become a patriotic anthem?
“It’s that chorus. It has really been misinterpreted as sort of this jingoistic sentiment, but really the song is advocating on behalf of Vietnam veterans who were left in the shadows. And Bruce was really one of the first mainstream artists to separate the war and its warriors, to demonstrate that you can herald the men and women who fought without supporting the war that they fought in. It’s really a song of righteous anger.
But I think because of that really earworm — a big, booming chorus — the messaging has been watered down and maybe lost on listeners.”
How have politicians, particularly Republicans from Reagan to President Trump, used heartland rock?
“Politicians will always be opportunistic. And this was some of the biggest music in the 1980s, so politicians have attempted to use John Mellencamp’s ‘Pink Houses’ or Tom Petty’s ‘Won’t Back Down’ or others. All these artists issue statements against that or even cease and desist letters. The messaging of their lyrics isn’t getting through to some folks, or maybe they just don’t care.”
By the end of the 1980s, the face of heartland rock had changed. You write that Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is integral to the genre’s history, too. Why?
“This song is so stirring and evocative. It makes you feel so much so instantly when you listen to it. The instrumentation is a little bit stripped back and the singing style is a little different than the rest of heartland rock, but I do believe it deserves to be written into the canon.
“She influenced artists like Luke Combs, and there’s a lot of connections between heartland rock and country music. So that’s certainly why I wanted to write Tracy Chapman into the book.”
Why is heartland rock still relevant for us to be thinking about and talking about nearly 40 years later?
“It is so relevant today because, for better or for worse, a lot of the messages in these songs provide a unifying sentiment or sense of community, hope or empowerment for a lot of working folks who are struggling today.
Also, heartland rock was the last bastion of rock and roll written and performed for adults. It was on every mainstream channel – MTV, VH1 – and then that sort of thing died in the 1990s. Grunge was a youth movement. It became popular, but at its essence, it’s counterculture. And after that, rock music sort of fizzled out. So I think it’s important to re-analyze and re-embrace heartland rock.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Walkey also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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