The Poetry of the Playlist, for Reviewers and for Students

I have spent a delightful morning pondering Bruce Springsteen--we are almost to the 50th (gasp!) anniversary of the release of the Born to Run album.  Born in the U.S.A. was my Springsteen entry point in the late summer of 1984, and then I got Born to Run later that autumn, in November.  I liked it alright, but I don't think that any other Springsteen album has captured my heart and imagination like Born in the U.S.A.

On the NPR program Fresh Air, I listened to this interview with Peter Ames Carlin, which explored the making of Born to Run--a fascinating glimpse of the creative process.  Before I listened to that interview, I read Peter McWhorter's piece in The Washington Post (hopefully a gift essay to read throughout the ages) about the Springsteen playlist that he listened to seven times--that's all of Born to Run, plus eleven songs:  “Rosalita,” “Prove It All Night,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “The River,” “Spirit in the Night,” “The Promised Land,” “Backstreets,” “Badlands,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The Rising,” and “New York City Serenade.”

By listening to the playlist seven times, he gained a new appreciation for Springsteen, particularly the poetry of Springsteen.  He has some interesting insights about poetry and the 21st century person:  "My Bruce immersion teaches me that the reason poetry on the page is such a rarefied taste in America today isn’t that Americans don’t have a taste for verse. It’s because there are pop music artists whose lyrics scratch that itch, just as Edna St. Vincent Millay and Robert Lowell once did. Taylor Swift’s music fits into the same category for me, as well as for many people over 40 I have spoken to about her work. I hear her songs as poetry; the music’s job is just to help get it across. And that’s what I hear when I listen to Springsteen: I hear poetry, and I hear Americans’ love of it."

There's also an interesting discussion about why and how the music of Billy Joel is different than that of Bruce Springsteen, and it boils down to the music that shaped them, folk music for Springsteen and Broadway for Joel.

I got some interesting ideas for teaching as I was listening, so let me capture them here:

--During a poetry unit, have students do something similar for the pop culture of their choice.  What scratches the poetry itch in ways that traditional poetry might not?  It could be music or theatre or a movie or a social influencer.

--Have students create a playlist or a watchlist of their favorite artist or artists and an essay about what is revealed by listening/watching across the list.

--Have students imagine the works that are important to them now, and how we'll think about them 50 years from now.  They could write about how the work has shaped them now and then imagine themselves 50 years from now.  Will the work speak to them differently?