Stuck in the Middle with...Bruce?

Bruce Springsteen did his first commercial, ever, on Super Bowl Sunday.

Jeep bought a 2-minute spot in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game that featured Springsteen, who had never before lent his name or music for a commercial product. In the commercial, The Boss intoned a message of unity, as he turned Jeep’s pitch into the short film, and used the middle of the country—the literal center: a tiny chapel in Lebanon, Kansas—as the metaphorical reconciliation spot for our divided nation.

Um, Bruce, do we really have to wear Cowboy hats, and go to places with far, far more horses than, you know, human beings? 

Do we have to go to church? 

I have no problems with entering a house of prayer that is not my own; and if you say I’d be welcome there, I suppose I’ll believe you. But your spot really isn’t the middle, is it? Where you see open spaces, I see closed doors.

You say, “We need the middle.” You say, “We need to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground.” But that also means we can find the middle in a Harlem coffee shop; or a San Francisco school board meeting; or an Atlanta gymnasium. 

You say, “The middle has been a hard place to get to.” I say, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to get to if you look in some places where you don’t need a Jeep. 

You want us to cross this divide. And you want us to meet—in the middle. But on the margins—on the coasts—are a lot of us that don’t feel like we’re standing in common ground. I’m from Jersey, like you Bruce, but I don’t look authentic in a cowboy hat and pointed boots. And if I have to put on a cowboy hat and wear pointed boots to “cross the divide,” I’m not sure it’s worth doing. 

There’s a song from 1974 by Stealers Wheel called, “Stuck in the Middle with You.” It’s not good, it’s great. It was written by Gerry Raferty and Joey Egan. And I kept thinking of that song—not any of yours—while watching your Jeep commercial.

Well I don't know why I came here tonight.

I've got the feeling that something ain't right.

I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,

And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs.

Clowns to the left of me!

Jokers to the right!

Here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Maybe you remember the song being immortalized brilliantly by the director Quentin Tarantino in “Reservoir Dogs.” He uses the song in a torture sequence that is almost beyond description. Unfortunately, if I got in a Jeep and drove all the way too the “middle” you chose, I’m pretty sure I would be singing Stealers Wheel’s lyrics: “I don’t know why I came here tonight. I’ve got the feeling that something ain’t right…”

Now, someone else did write a song four years after Raferty/Egan co-wrote “Stuck in the Middle” that resonates with me to this day. A song I believe in. Because I want to believe you, Bruce, when you tell me to meet in the middle. Because I’ve done my best to live the right way. Because I get up each morning, and go to work each day. Just like Americans in the heartland do.

To paraphrase that great young artist back in 1978, it’s time to Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted. 

We both believe in a Promised Land — but I see the same dark cloud rising from the desert floor that you saw 40 years ago.  I didn’t see the darkness on the edge of town in 1978, but I sure see it now.