Youngstown (song)
| "Youngstown" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Bruce Springsteen from the album The Ghost of Tom Joad | |
| Released | November 21, 1995 |
| Recorded | April – June 1995 at Thrill Hill West in Los Angeles |
| Genre | Folk rock |
| Length | 3:57 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Producer(s) | Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Plotkin |
"Youngstown" is a song by Bruce Springsteen from his 1995 album The Ghost of Tom Joad. Although many of the songs on the album were performed by Springsteen solo, the lineup for "Youngstown" includes Soozie Tyrell on violin, Jim Hanson on bass, Gary Mallaber on drums, co-producer Chuck Plotkin on keyboards, and Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar. The song has also been covered by Blue Moon Rising, Show Of Hands, The Stairwell Sisters, Steve Strauss and Matthew Ryan.
The song tells the tale of the rise and fall of Youngstown, Ohio, over several generations, from the discovery of iron ore nearby in 1803 through the decline of the steel industry in the area in the 1970s. The lyric tells its story in a style reminiscent of Bob Dylan's "With God on Our Side", evoking American history through several wars. It tells of how in the Civil War, Youngstown made the cannonballs that helped the Union prevail. Then the city built tanks and bombs to help win later wars, such as World War II. Finally, the boys of Youngstown went to fight the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Despite the town's history, when it became uneconomical to keep the steel mills in Youngstown going, they were shut down, thus doing "what Hitler couldn't do," to the devastation of the community.
The song's story unfolds as the narrative of one family's history as factory-workers in Youngstown. The narrator of the song himself is a Vietnam War veteran (continuing Springsteen's fixation with that war, also evident in songs such as "Born in the U.S.A." and "Lost in the Flood") and his father fought in World War II. Both also worked in the steel mills. The narrator had worked himself up to the job of scarfer, a difficult but low-paying job that entails torching the steel to remove imperfections. Although he describes the job as one "that would suit the devil well," it is enough to put food on the table, pay his debts and provide a sense of purpose. When the mill is shut down, he tells the owners that "Once I made you rich enough/Rich enough to forget my name." Finally, he prays that "the devil comes and takes me/To stand in the fiery furnace of hell." Towards the end of the song, the scope expands beyond Youngstown to other areas that were devastated by the decline of the steel industry, including the Monongahela Valley, Minnesota's Mesabi iron range and Appalachia.
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