Roll of the Dice: No Surrender

“[No Surrender] was a song I was uncomfortable with. You don’t hold out and triumph all the time in life. You compromise, you suffer defeat, you slip into life’s gray areas. But Steve [Van Zandt] talked me into putting the song on the album in the eleventh hour. He argued that the portrait of friendship and the song’s expression of the inspirational power of rock music was an important part of the picture. I don’t know if he was right or not, but it went on.” — Bruce Springsteen, Songs (1998)

There’s no such thing as cold.

Those of you currently in a damp November chill might choose to argue, but physicists would side with me: cold does not in fact exist. What we think of as cold is only the (relative) absence of heat. Cold is the natural state of the universe, waiting to be filled with warmth.

When Bruce Springsteen came close to leaving “No Surrender” off of his landmark Born in the U.S.A. album, he considered it too naïve, romantic, idealistic.

I guess he just hadn’t listened closely enough to his own song, because what “No Surrender” reminds us is that there’s no such thing as romance or idealism or naivete.

There’s only the absence of cynicism.

I first heard “No Surrender” when I was fifteen. More accurately, I first heard about “No Surrender” when I was fifteen. Before I’d even heard the song for the first time, there was a short-lived parental flap about Bruce’s opening lyrics:

Well we busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three-minute record
Baby, than we ever learned in school

I remember a swirling debate during the closing days of the school year about Bruce’s delinquent, corrupting lyrics: Bruce Springsteen is encouraging our children to skip school! Or worse: drop out! The nerve of suggesting that rock and roll can replace a good education!

Even at fifteen and without having heard the song, I knew that was ridiculous. My first thought was: Wait until they hear “Nebraska.” My second, like with every other kid in school, was: I need to hear this song.

I wouldn’t be able to afford Born in the U.S.A. for a couple of months yet, but I listened to it at a friend’s house. When we flipped the album and dropped the needle on Side Two, I’ll never forget that jolt of adrenaline that comes with hearing Max Weinberg barrel roll into “No Surrender” for the first time–heightened by the fact that Bruce was narrating exactly what we were feeling that moment:

Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you’re tired and you just wanna close your eyes
And follow your dreams down

How? How did he know? How did he know my heart was pounding in my chest from those first 27 seconds of jangly guitars, soaring wordless vocals, and Garry Tallent absolutely going to town! (“No Surrender” works best with a thumping subwoofer.)

But then that second couplet: Tired? Close my eyes? Hell no! Follow my dreams down? Down where? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Bruce! You’re not talking to me, that’s for sure.

He wasn’t.

I was too young to understand the heart of the song.

The rebellion part, I got. I was a teenager after all. I was all about rebellion. (In my inner fantasy world, that is. I was as straight-edge as they come in the real one.)

But the notion that in “No Surrender,” Bruce was upbraiding a blood brother for failing to live up to their shared ideals… it would be years before the challenges of adulthood made me truly understand  the song.

Well we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

My friends and I used to debate what the promise was about: eternal brotherhood and friendship was a popular opinion, as was making it big, scoring a record deal, achieving fame. Never forgetting your roots, that was what I leaned toward.

It wasn’t any of those, though. And if we’d listened closely enough to the second verse, we’d have realized it.

Well now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again

I’m ready to grow young again. There’s almost always one line in a Springsteen song that strikes me in my soul. The best ones lodge themselves there, and this was one of them: I’m ready to grow young again. Long before I knew what Bruce meant by it, I knew that line was the heart of the song.

Today, I think it might even be the heart of Bruce’s catalog. It’s certainly the heart of his live shows, whether or not “No Surrender” makes an appearance on the set list. It might even be at the core of rock itself. When the band takes the stage, together we grow young again.

And that’s the promise we swore: to never grow up. Never lose our idealism. Never let our furnaces go out.

The Who said it first: Things they do look awful cold; I hope I die before I get old.

“No Surrender” is about the dilemma we each face on the cusp of adulthood: how do we make our way in this world–let alone achieve our dreams–without sacrificing our ideals?

And hear your sister’s voice calling us home
Across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Because the offscreen addressee of “No Surrender” didn’t. He gave up. He gave in.

And it’s not like our narrator doesn’t understand the temptation:

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There’s a war outside still raging
you say it ain’t ours anymore to win

There’s a lot going on in this verse, a lot more than the surface suggests.

Our narrator is a wartime correspondent, transmitting to us from the front lines of his heart. Those aren’t streetlights dimming, they’re the fading furnaces of a generation slowly surrendering to cynicism. Those aren’t walls closing in, they’re the pressures of adulthood, of making our way in the world, of starting and raising a family.

And the war that isn’t ours anymore to win… that’s the bastion of idealism defending against invading cynicism, and the realization that command has been passed to a new generation. Our war heroes have gone over to the other side. Well, one of them has anyway. The other is going to die on the battlefield.

That’s why I couldn’t understand the song at fifteen: I was offscreen. It was my war to win now, and I was of age to enlist. And when I first heard the next verse, I joined up for life.

I wanna sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover’s bed
With a wide open country in my eyes
And these romantic dreams in my head

There’s a lot about “No Surrender” I didn’t understand at fifteen: its audience, its message, its wartime metaphor. But this… this I understood. It spoke to my soul, and woke it.

I’d never been anywhere. I grew up in Philadelphia and never really roamed any further than the Jersey shore. But I knew there was a wide open country out there, and I yearned to see it. And despite the juxtaposition to “lover’s bed,” I knew what Bruce meant by “these romantic dreams.”

He meant his idealism, and I knew enough to know I needed to protect mine. As Bruce acknowledged one night from the stage, “It seems that what keeps people human is their ability to keep dreaming about things. When you lose that…” He never finished the thought.

So how do you fight off cynicism when it comes knocking? You just don’t answer the door. Romance is our natural state.

Touring rock stars might have a built-in advantage in that regard, It’s hard to be jaded when you’ve seen the natural beauty that this world has to offer. It’s hard to be cynical when you meet people from every corner and every color of the country and see the best in them. But I’d figure out my own ticket before long. My lifelong wanderlust was born that day.

I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job over the years of protecting my romantic dreams (thanks in significant part to having Bruce Springsteen as a travelling companion) and teaching my daughters the importance of protecting their own. It may not be my fight to win anymore, but I’ve never laid down arms. But the fact that I understand everything about “No Surrender” at fifty that I didn’t at fifteen tells me I still need to keep my guard up.

And as I stare at a photo of my hours-old first grandchild, born earlier today, I realize that it’s my 24-year-old daughter’s turn now to take up arms. To keep those romantic dreams in her head as she starts her family and leads them across the front lines and into the world.

Because we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender

“No Surrender” was one of the last songs Bruce recorded for Born in the U.S.A., along with “Brothers Under the Bridges (’83)” which some have called an early version of “No Surrender.” (I’m of the opinion that these are two completely different songs that just happen to share some musical DNA, but you can judge for yourself.)

His ambivalence toward it was evident almost immediately. Clearly uncomfortable with its unbridled idealism, he returned to the studio a month later and recorded an acoustic version with tampered lyrics that temper the song’s steely passion–not necessarily to the song’s benefit.

Now on the streets tonight the lights are growing dim
The walls in my room are closing in
But it’s good to see your smiling face
And to hear your voice again
Now we could sleep in the twilight
By the river bed
With a wide open country in our hearts
And these romantic dreams in our heads

That acoustic studio version has never surfaced in the wild, but Bruce did perform it during the Born in the U.S.A. tour, alternating it with the studio version on any given night–still unsure even a year later which version he was most comfortable with.

But by the end of the tour, he’d decided. “No Surrender” would go on to make many more acoustic appearances over the years, always with its original album lyrics.

But apart from an odd arrangement on the Reunion Tour (which thankfully never surfaced again)…

…”No Surrender” remains one of Bruce’s most beloved anthems and certainly his most galvanizing, a call to duty for musicians and fans for generations to come.

No Surrender
Recorded: October 27, 1983
Released: Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
First performed: June 29, 1984 (St. Paul, MN)
Last performed: September 3, 2023 (East Rutherford, NJ)

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