“I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me, I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these Badlands”

song ~ “Badlands”  
artist ~ Bruce Springsteen  

Lights out tonight,
Trouble in the heartland,
Got a head on collision,
Smashin' in my guts, man,
I'm caught in a cross fire,
That I don't understand.

But there's one thing I know for sure, girl,
I don't give a damn
For the same old played-out scenes,
Baby, I don't give a damn
For just the in-betweens,
Honey, I want the heart, I want the soul,
I want control right now,
You better listen to me, baby

Talk about a dream,
Try to make it real
You wake up in the night,
With a fear so real,
You spend your life waiting,
For a moment that just don't come,
Well, don't waste your time waiting.

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday,
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay,
We'll keep pushin' 'til it's understood,
And these badlands start treating us good.

Workin' in the fields
'til you get your back burned,
Workin' 'neath the wheels
'til you get your facts learned,
Baby, I got my facts
Learned real good right now,
You better get it straight, darlin'
Poor man wanna be rich,
Rich man wanna be king,
And a king ain't satisfied,
'til he rules everything,
I wanna go out tonight,
I wanna find out what I got

Well, I believe in the love that you gave me,
I believe in the faith that can save me,
I believe in the hope and I pray,
That someday it may raise me
Above these badlands

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday,
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay,
We'll keep pushin' 'til it's understood,
And these badlands start treating us good.

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside,
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me
I wanna find one place,
I wanna spit in the face of these...

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday,
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay,
We'll keep movin' 'til it's understood,
And these badlands start treating us good.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa, badlands!     _{(Image source)    (Image source)}

Comments 

In many ways, this song from Springsteen’s early years is a quintessential Springsteen song. 

Bad luck

The protagonist is a man who is down on his luck and whose prospects are dim. His situation is so dire and so depressing that he can feel the despair and the gloom “smashin’ in my guts, man.”   Indeed, his world is truly bleak. It’s full of “trouble in the heartland”  and “broken hearts”  and “fear so real.”    

Good luck

Nevertheless, he retains a glimmer of hope that eventually, he will be able to rise above his situation, above “these badlands.”  Regardless of the grim situation and the bleak outlook, he holds on to hope. He hangs on to “a notion deep inside, that it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.”     

And he knows that the most (or the least) he can do is just keep living, keep moving on, in the hope that one day “these badlands [will] start treating us good.”   

Maybe, one day.   

Creative thievery benefits all

Springsteen took the riff for this song directly from the song “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood,”  by the 60s British band The Animals. He acknowledged that his use of the riff amounted to “successful theft.”  But, of course, no one has every suffered from such creative thievery – neither the robbed nor any listeners lucky enough to hear it.      _{(Image source)}
Bruce Springsteen – "Badlands"  _{(Right-click to hear on YouTube)}
Lyrics by Bruce Springsteen, courtesy of – AZLyrics.com
References – Wikipedia

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