My Hometown beschrijft de neergang van de plaats waar Springsteen opgroeide, Freehold, New Jersey. De fabrieken zijn gesloten, racisme heeft de arbeiders verdeeld en de winkelstraten bieden een desolate aanblik. Het gevoel van verbondenheid blijft ondanks alles bestaan: je kunt nooit écht afscheid nemen van de plek waar je bent opgegroeid.
Het is een fictief verhaal, maar sommige regels zijn gebaseerd op werkelijke gebeurtenissen uit Springsteens jeugd in Freehold. De regels Two cars at a light on a Saturday night, in the back seat there was a gun/Words were passed, a shotgun blast, troubled times had come verwijzen naar de moord op twee jonge zwarte mannen op 19 mei 1969 door enkele blanke mannen in een voorbijrijdende auto.
Into the bus stop to pick up a paper for my old man
I’d sit on his lap in that big old Buick
And steer as we drove through town
He’d tousle my hair and say “Son, take a good look around
This is your hometown.”This is your hometown
This is your hometown
This is your hometownIn ’65 tension was running high at my high school
There was a lot of fights ’tween the black and white
There was nothing you could do
Two cars at a light on a Saturday night
In the back seat there was a gun
Words were passed, then a shotgun blast
Troubled times had come to my hometown
To my hometown
To my hometown
To my hometown
Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says “These jobs are going, boys
And they ain’t coming back
To your hometown.”
To your hometown
To your hometown
To your hometown
Last night me and Kate, we laid in bed
Talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I’m thirty-five, we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel, and said
“Son take a good look around
This is your hometown.”
Uitgelichte afbeelding: By Freeholdman12 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113130693
