why did Bruce Springsteen piss on the flag?

The story begins in 1970 with American photographer Ethan Russell who, at 26 years of age, had already photographed The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus performance as well as taking the photos for the cover of the Beatles’ Let It Be album. Russell was traveling with the Who during an ad hoc tour through England. One day, the merry band of travelers decided to take a pit stop in between gigs. Atop a barren hill, they were attracted to a brutal slab of concrete that resembled the monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s recent masterpiece 2001 Space Odyssey. The group pulled over and the members of the Who began aping around for a bit as Russell snapped photos. After a couple of shots, the Who’s guitarist Pete Townsend whipped out his tally whacker and started pissing on the slab. In a moment of inspiration, Russell directed the other Who members to do the same.

The result was the iconic photo that became the cover of the Who’s classic 1971 album, Who’s Next — an album that, one day 8 years later, was in heavy rotation on Bruce Springsteen’s playlist as Springsteen was in between gigs himself. The Boss casually pulled over to take a pit stop while on the road. This wasn’t some barren hills in England however, this was the remote, empty highways of Arizona, U.S.A. As Springsteen stopped in at a dusty gas station to relieve himself, he checked out the magazine rack where he spied a copy of Born on the 4th of July— a memoir written by small-town everyman Ron Kovic. Kovic’s memoir detailed his life growing up in the idealized mainstream dreamland of America. After high school, Kovic enlisted in the Marines — right during the Vietnam War — only to return home in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. Springsteen was fascinated by Kovic’s story and he quickly began working on the song that would become “Born in the U.S.A”.

Springsteen was still working on “Born in the U.S.A,” a few months later when he meet Kovic in person in Los Angeles. By this time, California’s former governor Ronald Reagan was elected president of the U.S.A. Reagan, known for his pro-war rhetoric, had played a significant role in creating mid-century American film and tv propaganda for what Dwight D, Eisenhower termed “the military-industrial complex”. Reagan’s rhetoric reminded Kovic and Springsteen of the rhetoric that led the USA into the conflict in Vietnam and the escalation of that conflict. To fight that “bull shit idea of America” they agreed to stage a benefit concert for Vietnam Vets. Springsteen decided the benefit concert should take place right in Reagan’s backyard at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

Talking with Kovic and having the chance to meet veterans and hear their stories, Springsteen was struck by how many of them felt disillusioned by their government. Veteran after veteran expressed their loss of trust in the institutions they once believed in. One veteran flat out said that after he risked his life for his country, his county has done nothing but piss on him in return. Reagan’s pro-war rhetoric made Springsteen and Kovic worried that the same thing was happening all over again. Springsteen had to figure out a way to use these sentiments to complete his song Born in the USA (which is the title he eventually gave his next album as well).

As he continued to craft the song, Springsteen wanted to tap into that sentiment the veterans expressed that wasn’t being addressed in the mainstream media. It was something that he wanted to expose, but at the same time, he had witnessed other musicians like John Lennon pay the price for exposing their political ideas. To come right out and criticize the U.S. government would jeopardize Bruce’s hard-earned status as a working-class hero. Springsteen would have to be more strategic. He would have to pussy foot around the issues, make references, innuendos, and even hide the truth in plain sight, right under the listener’s nose. Not only in the song lyrics, but in the album cover as well.

Enter the financially troubled, former cocaine-addict Annie Leibovitz. Springsteen and Leibovitz had been in cahoots since Springsteen first rose to notoriety in the mainstream media. They had a lot in common. Not only were Springsteen and Leibovitz born just days apart, but they were also both iconic Jewish Baby boomer artists who had developed their liberal sensibilities during the turbulent culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Although both were Jewish, neither one was a practicing Jew. In fact, they both shied from the subject matter whenever it was brought up. As Springsteen developed his career honing his craft in the studio and on the road, Leibovitz spent her years developing her trademark portrait photographs that consisted of 1) bold primary colors and 2) her subjects positioned in bizarrely suggestive poses. Two famous examples of her work are the 1979 Bette Midler album cover that inspired the rock music film The Rose and the December 8, 1980 photo of a nude John Lennon curled around the fully clothed Yoko Ono.

After private meetings in which Springsteen described “Born In The USA” and his goals for the album, a photo shoot was scheduled. Springsteen arrived at the shoot wearing his every man/working man outfit: a white t-shirt, tight-fitting blue jeans, and a red ball cap that belonged to friend and fellow New Jersey musician Lance Larson (the cap was gifted to him by a friend, Lance Larson after his father passed away. Springsteen used the cap as a tribute, hoping to keep Larson’s father’s memory alive through the album). The one stipulation Springsteen insisted on for the photo shoot was the presence of a larger-than-life American flag as the backdrop for the photo. As the shoot began, a progressively palatable air of 70s subversive-ism was in the atmosphere. The two artists talked more of the album, its themes, and their shared left-wing passions until finally, late in the shoot — similar to Who’s impromptu shoot for Who’s Next, Springsteen turned his back to the camera and toward the large wall-sized flag. Like Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch in a music video, Springsteen grabbed his own tally wacker as though he was pissing on the flag. Leibovitz snapped the photo and knew at once that the Boss had his album cover.

The rest is history, albeit, ironic history, as the song and album that Springsteen created to point out the harm that bull shit rah-rah mainstream patriotism caused was actually used by Ronald Reagan to perpetuate more bull shit rah-rah mainstream patriotism as Reagan evoked Springsteen and use “Born In The USA” on the campaign trail in 1984. Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said: “Really, it’s a defiant song about ‘I was born in the USA, and I deserve better than what I’m getting.’ I think plenty of people didn’t get what it was about, including the president of the United States.”

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