I grew up in a mid-Atlantic American State, a fair distance from the ocean. While I’d been to the Jersey Shore once, maybe twice, my family tended to favor remote camping areas and National Parks rather than the stomping ground of Bruce Springsteen’s songs. As specific to his own part of New Jersey as some of his lyrics are, many acknowledge that the songs he writes speaks to them and about the places they are from. So it was with me; his songs about driving Highway 9 or huddling on the beach were not alienating despite never having experienced those sensations for myself.
In fact, when he sang “I come from down in the valley where, Mister, when you’re young…” I imagined he was describing precisely the Appalachian river valley where I, myself*, felt stuck – wondering how far away the nearby two-lane highway could take me (anywhere?). And like Bruce, I often wondered if I didn’t learn “more from a three-minute record, baby, than [I] ever learned in school.”
Now, I’m no Boss fanatic (that’s understood). I came late to the party, eschewing his benefactions in that time when he was pretty much the biggest thing going. The massive airplay of 1984’s Born in the USA and the release of the Live/1975–85 album in 1986, combined with the urgings from a friend who had grown up in Freehold New Jersey, caused me to slowly work my way backward through his ouvre. Although I came to appreciate much of it, I generally derived my own musical inspirations from others and from elsewhere. In fact, to this day, I’ve never been to a Springsteen show. That said, I genuinely appreciate the power of (pop) music to provide a guiding light to youth and young adults. That is what the movie Blinded by the Light is about.
The DVD that I rented has a lineup of previews before getting to the movie. The first is a Bruce Springsteen concert film called Western Stars, also released in 2019. I’d never heard of it. I didn’t recognize any of the music that Springsteen played in the trailer and his speaking voice sounded less like iconic Bruce Springsteen than just another old man. The simple fact is, I’ve not listened to much of anything Springsteen since Born in the USA and the 1986 live album. And that is despite the undeniable impact on me of so much that came from him before.
The movie is a 2019 release from writer and director Gurinder Chadha. I really enjoyed her 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham but have had no awareness of her continued creations for film and TV. Blinded by the Light is not just a fantasy. It is a stylized interpretation of the early life of Sarfraz Manzoor, based on his autobiography Greetings from Bury Park (he also co-wrote the screenplay). Manzoor is a Pakistani-born British journalist who grew up in Luton, one of the largest non-cities in England located not far north of London. He came of age in the late 1980s, during the tumultuous Thatcher years in England. The film mixes race, religion, and politics with love, family, and music in a way that’s charming rather than preachy.
Blinded by the Light is a charming, feel-good movie. I have to think that Springsteen fans will love the tribute. As for non-Springsteen music fans? The marriage of classic rock with Bollywood should appeal to plenty of those as well. Blinded by the Light is also an impassioned defense of “The American Dream,” a concept that is still alive in this world, even far away from those Jersey (New or Old) shores.
A line near the closing of the film had me thinking about that last point. Recognizing the themes of hard work, perseverance, and the importance of family, the main character’s father says that Springsteen “must be Pakistani.” It’s a reminder of the universality of traits that we credit ourselves and our “tribe” and often deny the “other.” To a Pakistani immigrant near London, these values may seem unique to his own race and culture. Likewise the Mexican immigrant in Los Angeles. But it is no less true of the farmer from Nebraska or the coal miner from the East Midlands. Isn’t it these values that can unite the earth rather than abstract art, drum circles, and angry poetry?
For all that Bruce Springsteen did to inspire Manzoor, the latter has returned the favor. Bruce read a copy of Greetings from Bury Park and, upon meeting Manzoor at the premier of the documentary The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town, told the author that his book was “beautiful.” This further inspired Manzoor to adapt the book into a film and to request permission to use Bruce’s music in it – something that Springsteen rarely allows. Springsteen quickly granted that permission and, later, thanked director Chadha for the beautiful treatment that the movie gave him.
For his part, Manzoor has described the film as reproducing the experience of a live concert. He should know. The end credits say that Manzoor has seen Bruce perform over 150 times.
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*In the lyrics, the singer mentions that he worked construction for the “Johnstown Company.” This suggests Johnstown, PA. In 1977 (two years before the recording of The River album), Johnstown suffered a major flood. The damage combined with the decline of America’s steel industry to plunge the city into poverty and decline. One might imagine that Bruce really did set his story there. That’s not where I lived. It is also written that he based the song’s lyrics on the experiences of his sister, Virginia, who got pregnant in high school and married her boyfriend to settle down into an unanticipated working-class life. They lived in New Jersey – also not where I lived.