Bruce Springsteen was advocating for the rights of the common working-class man. The song was widely misinterpreted as jingoistic, and in connection with the 1984 presidential campaign became the subject of considerable folklore. In 1984, conservative columnist George Will attended a Springsteen concert and then wrote a column praising Springsteen's work ethic. Six days after the column was printed, in a campaign rally in Hammonton, New Jersey, Reagan said, "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire—New Jersey's own, Bruce Springsteen." Two
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen song) Badlands (Bruce Springsteen song) "Badlands" is the leadoff track on Bruce Springsteen's fourth studio album "Darkness on the Edge of Town", and its second single. According to Springsteen, he came up with the title "Badlands" before he started writing the song. He felt it was a "great title" but that it would be easy to blow it by not writing a worthy song for it. The riff is based on The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." According to the editors of "Rolling Stone" magazine, the song "tapped into the ferocity of the punk singles he'd been listening to at