The song title “Independence Day” has popped up several times in music history, attached to significant songs. Writers understand that listeners expect something patriotic and upbeat when that phrase appears, making it ripe for subversion.
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Bruce Springsteen used the title to depict a separation between son and father. The somber lyrics suggest that physical distance won’t necessarily create much psychological or emotional remove from the memories and wounds of old struggles.
A Long-Awaited Release
Bruce Springsteen couldn’t quite pull the trigger on releasing “Independence Day”. He originally wrote it for Darkness On The Edge Of Town, where its bleak, downcast nature would have fit well with that album’s contents. He decided to hold it back, although he played it live on the tour supporting the record.
In 1979, Springsteen prepared an album titled The Ties That Bind. “Independence Day” didn’t make the cut for that record either. But it received a lifeline when Springsteen scrapped plans for that LP. Instead, he expanded to a double album called The River in 1980. He finally included “Independence Day” as the closing song on Side One of that release.
The song finds Springsteen writing in nakedly autobiographical form, something he rarely did on his early albums. In the lyrics, he addresses the difficult relationship that he experienced with his father growing up.
“Independence Day” rehashes the moment when Springsteen decided he’d have to leave home if he wanted a different life than his father, Douglas, who worked at a plastics factory from a young age. Instead of coming at the scenario with recriminations and rancor, however, the son delivers his farewell speech with a sympathetic understanding of what his father has endured.
Exploring the Lyrics of “Independence Day”
The decision that drives “Independence Day” has already been made at the beginning of the song. “Nothing we can say is gonna change anything now,” the narrator explains to his father before seeing him off to bed. “We wouldn’t change this thing even if we could somehow,” he admits, a subtle nod to their shared stubbornness.
The narrator mentions a “darkness” that envelops both the house and the town, something he can’t wait to escape: “They ain’t gonna do to me what I watched them do to you.” In the second verse, he realizes that they were more alike than he’d like to admit. But he’s still on his way out the door.
Springsteen begins the final verses by taking a wider view of the setting, seeing nothing but emptiness and ghostlike people aimlessly wandering the highway. He then returns to his father for a few words before parting. “And soon, everything we’ve known will just be swept away,” he says in a damning assessment of home and family.
In the chorus, the young man uses the title to express his personal liberty, insisting that “all boys must run away.” But he spends the final refrain on an apology for things beyond his control. “Papa, now I know the things you wanted that you could not say,” he explains. “But won’t you just say goodbye? It’s Independence Day/I swear I never meant to take those things away.”
The last line is particularly devastating, as it makes clear that leaving won’t remove the guilt that this young man feels. “Independence Day” is no cause for celebration in Bruce Springsteen’s song. It simply makes the occasion when one realizes that leaving home with familial relationships frayed is a better option than staying put and shattering them completely.
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