People usually think this song is about: Being uber patriotic. But it's really about: Casting a critical and mournful eye on America and its involvement in war. Listen to the opening chords of this Springsteen rock classic and you can't help but have visions of patriotic fist-bumping on the Fourth of July.
In 1972, at age 18, Bob Taylor began working at American Dream, a guitar making shop owned by Sam Radding, where Kurt Listug was already an employee. When Radding decided to sell the business in 1974, Taylor, Listug, and Schemmer bought American Dream and renamed it the Westland Music Company.
Taylor was born on 21 May 1832 the son of a chemist and Methodist lay preacher James Taylor and his wife, Amelia (Hudson), but as a young man he ran away from the Christian beliefs of his parents. At seventeen, after reading an evangelistic tract pamphlet entitled Poor Richard, he professed faith in Christ, and in December 1849, he committed himself to going to China as a missionary.