Springsteen’s Atlantic City
By Charlie. Filed in Travel |
It’s a sharp contrast between the song and the place, or between then and now. Atlantic City has gone through many dizzying transformations, however, and the place now is much more reminiscent of its heydays, which might mean that we’re living through another one right here and now. Traveling in New Jersey, where Atlantic City Hotels might be some of the best in the state, is an eye-opening experience, and one that is continually refreshing. There is a certain sense of going back in time to an era that many believed gone, but the most romantic New Jersey residents know that it’s still living right here.
It’s always taken Bruce Springsteen to open up our minds to the places in New Jersey that hold a special meaning, and his way of turning an everyday place into a metaphor is always stunning. But his vision of Atlantic City from the Nebraska album is as dark as it can get in his world. Interestingly, when he does write about the place he loves so much, it’s always been with a rather peculiar angst, and sometimes even disdain, like some of the lyrics in Born to Run, the album that brought him to the attention of the world.
The differences between those albums is light years, and the infectious optimism, and even defiance, turned in the short ten years into an exhausted melancholy, with a fair share of defiance. There is always a brilliant sense of refusal in his work, refusing to stay still in the midst of chaos, and a refusal to give in to the powers that be. In Atlantic City, there is a sense that magical things might happen, but it’s also certain that magical things are happening, somewhere on the boardwalk, as young lovers negotiate the distance between an ideal life and living in the moment.
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Tags: atlantic city