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Beyond blood brothers: queer Bruce Springsteen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2013

Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel
Rosalie Zdzienicka Fanshel*
Affiliation:
P.O. Box 1967, Sebastopol, CA 95473, USA E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Bruce Springsteen's body of work contains a striking number of songs with homoerotic or queerly suggestive content. Moreover, his live performances often push the limits of the homosocial, ‘queering’ onstage relationships through everything from lingering kisses with the late saxophonist Clarence Clemons to intimate microphone sharing with guitarist and real-life best friend Stevie Van Zandt. In this paper I trace Bruce Springsteen's consistent performative engagement with queer desire over the course of his 40-year career through a close reading of both lyrics and performance (including onstage, and in video and still photography). I examine how Springsteen's queer lyrical content and performative acts contrast critically with dominant readings of his hypermasculine, ‘all-American’ image, and suggest that Springsteen's regular deployment of homosocial and homoerotic imagery in both lyrics and performance – far from being an exception to his more mainstream persona – actually constitute a kind of queer aesthetic vital to, and consistent with, his artistic vision of love and community.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , October 2013 , pp. 359 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

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Discography

Springsteen, Bruce, ‘Marie’. Unreleased song. 1972Google Scholar
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Springsteen, Bruce, ‘Dance on Little Angel’ (aka ‘Angel Baby’ and ‘A Night Like This’). Unreleased song. 1974Google Scholar
Springsteen, Bruce, ‘And the Band Played’ (aka ‘Tokyo’, ‘Shanghai’ or ‘Born to Win’). Unreleased song. 1974Google Scholar
Springsteen, Bruce, ‘Thunder Road’ / ‘Backstreets’ / ‘Born to Run’ / ‘Meeting Across the River’. Born to Run. Columbia Records, CK 33795. 1975Google Scholar
Springsteen, Bruce, ‘The Ties That Bind’ / ‘Two Hearts’ / ‘Out in the Street’. The River. Columbia Records, C2K 36854. 1980Google Scholar
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Springsteen, Bruce, ‘No Surrender’ / ‘Bobby Jean’. Born in the U.S.A. Columbia Records, CK 38653. 1984Google Scholar
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Springsteen, Bruce, ‘Tougher than the Rest’ / ‘Walk Like a Man’. Tunnel of Love. Columbia Records, CK 40999. 1988Google Scholar
Springsteen, Bruce, ‘This Hard Land’ / ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ / ‘Blood Brothers’. Greatest Hits. Columbia Records, CK 67060. 1995Google Scholar
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Springsteen, Bruce, ‘Zero and Blind Terry’ / ‘Rickey Wants a Man of Her Own’ / ‘My Love Will Not Let You Down’ / ‘Brothers under the Bridges’ / ‘My Lover Man’ / ‘Back in Your Arms’. Tracks. Columbia Records, CK 69482–CK 69485. 1998Google Scholar
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Videography

Andrew Solt Productions, History of Rock ‘N’ Roll. Time-Life Video & Television and Warner Brothers, 34991. 1995Google Scholar
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