Bruce Springsteen "4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)"

I always thought Bruce did a great job of capturing a certain melancholy feeling about the 4th Of July from the perspective of a young adolescent male.

When you're a kid, Independence Day is about parades and fireworks and your nascent understanding of patriotism.  It's hot and fun and loud and great.

When you're an adult, you enjoy those things too, but you also have a fully developed sense of what Independence Day means to you, which may or may not involve a mixture of pride, respect, sadness of loss, wonder or gratefulness.  You may just be eating a hot dog, but its likely to be a reflective hot dog.

But when you're a young man, you're too old for parades, and too young and stupid to fully embrace the emotional weight and/or complexities of the day.  You experience the day in that self-absorbed way that young men experience, well, most things.

The 4th Of July is kind of like a summertime New Year's Eve.  It never lives up to the hype.  You never have as much fun as you think you are going to have.  Sitting and watching fireworks just makes you feel a little bit lonely, especially when you start thinking about that waitress you were seeing.  The whole night feels like time is running out.  And if you do meet a girl, something about the whole thing smacks of desperation . . .

Bruce paints this picture quite vividly.

Happy 4th!


Hear the song on Youtube.