Bob Dylan’s 1985 Song About a Vietnam Vet Takes Some Wild Lyrical Turns

In 1984, Bruce Springsteen released the song “Born In The U.S.A.”. It’s probably the most famous song to date about the plight of US soldiers returning home from Vietnam. Around that same time, Bob Dylan was doing his own take on the same theme.

Released a year later on his album Empire Burlesque, “Clean Cut Kid”, like Springsteen’s song, pulls no punches. But Dylan’s idiosyncratic lyrical approach sets it apart from any other treatise on the topic.

“Kid” About It

Throughout his songwriting career, Bob Dylan’s songwriting brilliance has been occasionally contrasted by his unorthodox recording methods. In the mid-80s, Dylan was a bit at sea in terms of how he should record his material. The album Empire Burlesque, released in 1985, typified this issue.

Dylan undertook several different sets of recording sessions for the album that stretched out over the better part of a year. He managed to achieve a sense of coherence in the sound by farming all the disparate material off to Arthur Baker to mix. Many have complained over the years about the 80s-era quirks of Baker’s approach, but at least it gave the LP balance.

In one of the album’s first sessions, Dylan took a shot at “Clean Cut Kid”. The group behind him included Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones on guitar. Later down the road, Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers added his piano to the mix. Dylan’s harmonica wheezes throughout the track. Female backing vocalists second his every vocal exhortation.

These days, “Clean Cut Kid” doesn’t get a ton of attention compared to other songs in Bob’s catalog. After all, it was an album track from an LP that many (though not us) deride. But a close inspection shows that Dylan’s lyrical cylinders were still firing just fine, even if the recorded output occasionally cloaked that fact.

A Deep Dive into the Lyrics of “Clean Cut Kid”

Dylan starts “Clean Cut Kid” off with a whopper of a couplet amidst the herky-jerky rhythmic pulse. “Everybody’s asking why he couldn’t adjust,” he sneers. “Adjust to what, a dream that bust?” We soon find out that he’s referring to a veteran scarred by his experiences: “They took a clean-cut kid/And they made a killer out of him/That’s what they did.”

Dylan suggests that this poor soul was brainwashed: “They put ideas in his head he thought were his.” Along the way, we catch glimpses of the all-American boy he once was. And, boy, was he ever busy as a youth, with exploits including baseball, marching band, Boy Scouts, choir, and running a “watermelon stand.” (How did he miss the 4-H club?)

Contrast that to his experience overseas. “They sent him to a napalm health spa to shape up,” Dylan sarcastically summarizes. “They gave him dope to smoke, drinks and pills,” he explains. “A jeep to drive, blood to spill.”

His life spirals once he returns to the “rat race without any breaks.” That’s when Dylan’s unique point of view comes to the fore: “He went to Hollywood to see Peter O’Toole/He stole a Rolls-Royce and drove it in a swimming pool.”

Not unexpectedly, the tale of the “Clean Cut Kid” ends in tragedy. “All he ever wanted was somebody to trust,” Dylan empathetically moans. An anti-war treatise and character sketch rolled into one, not even Dylan’s haphazard recording techniques could dull the impact of this song.

(Photo by: NBCU Photo Bank)