Bruce Springsteen and Donald Trump

Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr Terry Smith/Flickr (CC-BY-SA) Remix by Jason Reed

Journalist takes down Trump using only Bruce Springsteen lyrics

Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" might be the perfect theme song for the Trump administration.

 

David Britton

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 1, 2017   Updated on May 22, 2021, 12:34 pm CDT

“Atlantic City,” Bruce Springsteen’s dark ballad about a troubled man taking a job for the mob, has been covered countless times since it was first released in 1982. The Band, Mumford and Sons, The Counting Crows, and Ben Harper are among the many artist who have recorded the classic tune.

Now, Vice editor Gabrielle Bluestone has found a way to put her own spin on it. She used the lyrics, in their entirety, to take down the Trump administration in an unbelievable Twitter thread.

In Springsteen’s original, “The Chicken Man” referred to mafia boss Philip Testa, who was killed by a nail bomb. Here, Bluestone uses it as a metaphor for Paul Manafort, who turned himself into the FBI on Monday.

But she’s just getting started. There’s a whole song to get through and Bluestone manages to find an image for every lyric the Boss wrote.

There are pictures and screenshots for all the lyrics.

And, as she points out, the people who Trump surrounds himself with might get fired.

But they’re never really gone.

It’s a brilliant sendup and one worth reading in its entirety. With any luck, Bluestone will give us an encore. We humbly suggest “Born in the U.S.A.”

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*First Published: Nov 1, 2017, 12:43 pm CDT