"I'm on Fire," by Bruce Springsteen, Friday, October 8, 2021

Born in the U.S.A. was Bruce Springsteen's biggest album. Seven of the twelve tracks shot to the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. It made the 35-year-old once uncool-thus-commercially-unviable frontman of the E Street Band a pop star. A excellent two-part series by Slate's Hit Parade analyzes what made this album a hit in the summer of 1984. It was Springsteen retaining hits, rather than giving away his potential number ones to fellow pop artists. It was Reagan's America fueled with patriotic conservatives who only read the title and didn't listen to the verses. It was disenfranchised Vietnam veterans who came home to hard economical times. It was Springsteen listening to his producers, realizing that rockabilly can have synthesizers from time to time. And there was certainly some sex appeal. Perhaps Springsteen's ass in his tight, straight-leg Levi's is the most famous album cover posterior, pre-hip hop. 

I'VE GOT A BAD DESIRE. "I'm on Fire" is a middle track on the 30x platinum album. It was released as a single in time for Valentine's Day in 1985, and the video received heavy rotation on MTV. The video imagines Springsteen working as a mechanic, contemplating an affair with a wealthy married woman. "I'm on Fire" proves that a song doesn't need to be heavy or dynamic to convey its meaning. This calm, adult-oriented rock song describes lust in such a graphic way without ever sinking to poor taste. Well, that might not be entirely true. There are wars on Reddit and blogs if the song is pedophilic. After all, the opening lines to the song sound like they were written for a Stranger-Danger PSA for school children. "Hey little girl is your daddy home? Did he go and leave you all alone? I've got a bad desire" sounds pretty predatory. The video depicts someone of age, and the song is probably not a literal, "little girl," just as how some songs call girls "mama," or some men are referred to as "daddy." And of course, the more you talk about it, the weirder it gets. So assuming that everyone's of age, which we always can't when listening to old songs, the song is quite universal: desire for someone out of your league. Desire for someone you shouldn't be with because that person is with someone else. When you "wake up with sheets soakin' wet," you might have a problem. 

ONLY YOU CAN COOL MY DESIRE. Born in the U.S.A. was Springsteen's heyday. Before the album, he had fans. After the album, he became a legend. But it seems that as I pay more attention to pop and rock music history, there is usually one album that you can pinpoint as that artist's prominence. Even though the artist may continue to produce hits for years after that point of prominence, little by little, you'll start to see the star fade. That's what happened to The Boss after Born in the U.S.A. Sure, his next project, a live boxset of his prior works, defied expectation, as no boxset had even charted before. Springsteen's debuted at number 1 on Billboard's Top 200 album charts. His much anticipated follow-up to U.S.A., Tunnel of Love, produced five singles, and each subsequent album became less commercially competitive. Tunnel of Love detailed the problems in his marriage to actress Julianne Phillips, a woman he had married in 1985 and who was 11 years younger than the singer. During the touring cycle of Tunnel, Bruce fell in love with his backup singer, Patricia Scialfa, eventually divorcing Julianne in 1988. Springsteen and Scialfa married in 1991 and are still married to this day. "I'm on Fire" is an anthem of young lust. It's the fantasy of the working-class boy marrying the actress. And if the fantasy does happen, like it did to the real Springsteen, not the mechanic, the flames might get out of control. Or they might just burn out.

Official Music Video:

Live:

 

Read “I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen on Genius