Roll of the Dice: The Promised Land

So I think by now I’ve pretty well established that I can be a little bit, um, detail-obsessed when it comes to Bruce’s music.

But I might be pushing the envelope with this confession:

I listened and sang along to “The Promised Land” for many, many years before one day it dawned on me–and only by reading the lyrics on-line, because I apparently never picked it up in Bruce’s vocals–that despite the title, Bruce is not singing about “The Promised Land.”

He’s singing about a promised land. Indefinite vs. definite.

And once I realized that, the entire meaning of the song changed on me. I’ll never listen to the song the same way again–that’s how significant that word choice was.

I’ll explain, but let’s take a listen first to get us in the mood:

If you really pay attention to it, “The Promised Land” is a pretty dark song, befitting its home on a dark album:

On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert
I pick up my money and head back into town
Driving cross the Waynesboro county line
I got the radio on and I’m just killing time
Working all day in my daddy’s garage
Driving all night chasing some mirage
Pretty soon little girl I’m gonna take charge

The dogs on Main Street howl ’cause they understand
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister, I ain’t a boy. No, I’m a man!
And I believe in a promised land

This is a man who is seriously stuck. He idles his life away a day at a time, somewhere out in a remote area of a remote state. He holds no power, he exerts no control over his life.

During the day, he works for his father. Is it any wonder that the most impassioned line of the chorus is a protest that he’s a man, not a boy? One gets the sense (I do, at least) that the “Mister” he’s singing to is himself.

Why are the dogs howling on Main Street? They’re howling in empathetic frustration–they feel, as the narrator feels, unable to exert any influence or control over their surroundings, their lives.

If only they could just have one moment… one make-or-break moment… what would they do?

I’ve done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this whole town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start

We live our lives. We do what we believe we’re supposed to do, act like we believe we’re supposed to act. We try our best to live the lessons we’ve been taught about what life is supposed to be.

But what do you do when the person you’re supposed to be isn’t the person you want to be? When the urge to rebel and escape is so overpowering that it blinds you and makes you cold to those around you–when self-determination meets collides with familial obligation and comes out the other side as self-loathing… what do you do?

Do you take it out on the town?

Do you find a metaphorical knife and take it out on yourself?

Do you walk around with a chip on your shoulder, waiting for someone “itching for something to start” to cross your path?

Or do you anesthetize yourself to ease the pain that living brings? (to quote another, much later, song)

I’m well aware that most fans embrace the final verse as a stance of defiance, courage, and determination:

Well there’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

…but I don’t hear it that way. Not anymore, at least. I used to, back when I heard Bruce sing “the” and not “a.”

When I thought I heard Bruce sing about “the promised land,” the narrator struck me as someone with a dream, a vision that he was trying to reach, to make real. His steadfastness was heroic, and throwing himself into the storm was an act of bravery.

But once I realized Bruce was singing about “a promised land,” I felt the ground shift beneath me. The promised land is a specific goal, a place you run to. A promised land is simply an escape from.

And once the song becomes more about running from than running toward, the narrator becomes (in my mind) more trapped, more desperate, more despairing. And that storm… I can’t help but hear that verse as a callback to “Lost in the Flood:”

That pure American brother, dull-eyed and empty-faced
Races Sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock super eight
He rides her low on the hip, on the side he’s got Bound For Glory in red, white and blue flash paint
He leans on the hood telling racin’ stories, the kids call him Jimmy the Saint
Well that blaze and noise boy, he’s gunnin’ that bitch loaded to blastin’ point
He rides headfirst into a hurricane and disappears into a point
And there’s nothin’ left but some blood where the body fell
That is, nothin’ left that you could sell
Just junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman’s farewell
And I said, “Hey kid, you think that’s oil? Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood”
I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm
Or was he just lost in the flood?

If not for the setting (Jersey vs. Utah), it wouldn’t be a stretch to wonder if “Lost in the Flood” and “The Promised Land” are the same song about the same character told from two different perspectives. The storm in “Lost in the Flood’ is a metaphor for drugs, and that strikes me as a very plausible read of “The Promised Land” as well. Read it again, through that lens:

Well there’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground
Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
Blow away the dreams that break your heart
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted

You hear it now, don’t you?

You might argue that the rousing music belies this interpretation; I’d counter by pointing out that this would hardly be the only case of Bruce pairing painful, sobering lyrics with an anthem-like melody (see “Born in the U.S.A.“).

And just like the acoustic blues version of “Born in the U.S.A.” brings out the deep meaning and inner pain of that song, so too does the acoustic version of “The Promised Land” from the 1995-1997 and 2005 tours practically beg a darker reading:

That’s not a song of defiance–that’s a song of submission and surrender, that percussive heartbeat the sound of a dream dying.

And the tragedy of it is that the narrator–even in that moment of despair and surrender–still believes that somewhere, somewhere, there’s a promised land where he can realize his potential. If only he knew where, and how to get there.

To my ears, “The Promised Land” is a deeply, deeply unsettling song.

Am I able to still enjoy the anthemic arrangement at an E Street Band show? Sure. I’m well aware that Bruce sees “The Promised Land” (at least in some contexts) as a lesson to the importance of community, as a metaphor for the American dream. And I can accept that–he’s the songwriter after all–in much the same way that I can accept Bruce and Patti singing “Brilliant Disguise” as a love song despite its origin as something else.

But every time I hear it in concert–which is a lot (Bruce has played it at 65% of my 65 shows)–I feel a strange mix of defiance and doubt, of ferocity and fear, of community and isolation that takes me a song or two after to fully shake off.

And whether you see the song through that lens or not–whether “The Promised Land” leaves you feeling exhilarated or defeated–it’s the sign of a great work of art when you feel that much of anything. “The Promised Land” ranks up there among Bruce’s greatest art. That’s probably why it hasn’t missed a tour since it debuted.

Bonus clips:

Here’s an alternate mix of “The Promised Land,” minus Bruce’s guitar solo. More of a curiosity than anything else.

…and my favorite recent performance, from 2013 at Camden Lock in North London:

The Promised Land
Recorded: December 1977
Released: Darkness on the Edge of Town  (1978), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
First performed: May 23, 1978 (Buffalo, NY)
Last performed: September 3, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)

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