“Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Springsteen, February 24, 2021

 

There is little that my parents agree on musically, but one thing they DO agree on is that whenever Bruce Springsteen comes on the radio, they change the station. For years, all I knew from Springsteen was “Born in the USA,” and the song didn’t resonate with me, so I too passed on The Boss. But when I watched Philadelphia, I heard a different side of Springsteen. Yes, the smokey voice was slightly off-putting in other songs, but how it met with the keys and faint lead guitar, and coalescing with the lyrics to created an emotional and spiritual experience. Last year, I listened to his song "I'm on Fire," a lot. Though somewhat problematic, Springsteen masterfully uses imagery to transport the listener into the experience. Last year when I was returning to Korea just before the pandemic, I watched several movies on the plane. Two of them stuck out. The first was Where's My Roy Cohn, the story of Trump's villainous lawyer who died in the mid-80s of AIDS. The other movie was Blinded By the Light, a true story about how the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen helped two teenagers reconcile the tensions between their South Asian family-life upbringings and Western culture. Bruce Springsteen's lyrics have been influential on many of the musicians I listen to. Could my parents have been wrong?

I WAS UNRECOGNIZABLE TO MYSELF. I grew up in an Adventures-in-Odyssey-listening home. My mom would also listen to Focus on the Family with James Dobson. Adventures in Odyssey is a radio drama produced by Focus on the Family. The aim of the foundation is to instill conservative Christian values in children and adults. Adventures in Odyssey was so well dramatized with professional voice actors who worked for Disney and even The Simpsons. Sound production was also great. I still can see the characters and places I imagined from the show. But I didn't realize how indoctrinated I had become with a very particular interpretation of scripture. Topics ranged from Bible stories to history lessons (slanted to the right) to learning how to obey your parents or teachers. But they also dealt with prayer in school, divorce, evolution, role playing games, the occult, and too many others to name. One special episode even dealt with abortion. As I grew up, I learned what Focus on the Family was teaching parents. Adventures in Odyssey dealt with issues from children's perspectives. Children have no control over if their parents get divorced. However, Dobson used the adult program to fuel the culture war. Hollywood and secularism were winning, and issues of abortion, homosexuality, and the removal of God from public schools were the program's bread and butter. 

AIN'T NO ANGEL GONNA GREET ME. Philadelphia is named after the ancient city located in present day Turkey. The name means, "brotherly love," coming from phileo which is one of the Greek words for love. However, the AIDS crisis was not about brotherly love. President Reagan treated the epidemic with silence. As more and more kept dying, the epidemic struck closer to home. Celebrities, gay men, women and children who received blood transfusions--anyone could be a victim of the virus. AIDS which had been something only heard about on TV was impacting real people. Hollywood responded slowly, too. However, 1993's Philadelphia, humanized AIDS for many Americans. America's most beloved actor, Tom Hanks, portrayed a gay man dying of AIDS who sues his place of employment over unlawful termination. Despite Hanks's powerful onscreen portrayal, the religious right continued to fire back, doubling down, calling the plague "God's punishment." And 40 years removed from the start of the AIDS epidemic, I cannot hear the voice of Christ in all the noise. The media showed us the cries of suffering of millions of people who died alone. I hear the blaring silence of the countless dead who cannot speak for themselves. I hear the voice of the accuser, the Biblical Satan, who speaks like a Pharisee in the New Testament. The AIDS crisis was a failure of brotherly love. The church turned a cold shoulder to the down-and-out. Few Christian singers would touch this demographic to show radical love to the world. But Springsteen, Hanks, and Washington showed Jesus to "The Streets of Philadelphia."

https://genius.com/Bruce-springsteen-streets-of-philadelphia-lyrics