Today marks the 30th (30th!) anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen's mega-album, Born in the U.S.A. As a 6-year-old, this was my first exposure to Springsteen. I remember seeing the videos and concert footage and not really understanding that he had previously been a huge star. I just assumed that when you had a kickass song, you sold out football stadiums. Then again, I also assumed that the title track was a patriotic anthem (as did Ronald Reagan's campaign, infamously), when, in fact, it was a song about how the Vietnam War screwed up the working class.
The album is Springsteen's most successful, going 15x platinum in the US and selling 30 million copies worldwide. It is one of three albums in the history of rock and roll with seven Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100: "Dancing in the Dark" (#1), "My Hometown" (#7), "I'm On Fire" (#8), "Born in the U.S.A." (#9), "Glory Days" (#9), "I'm Goin' Down" (#9), and "Cover Me" (#10). And the other five songs on the album are pretty damn good, too.
With so many great songs to choose from, I went with "Glory Days," since it's a pretty universal song about, well, your glory days and reminiscing about (and trying to recapture) your youth. It's a great bar jukebox song. My favorite line is "Think I'm going down to the well tonight / And I'm gonna drink 'til I get my fill." If I ever own a bar, I'm going to call it The Well because of this song.
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