" My Hometown " is a single by Bruce Springsteen off his Born in the U.S.A. album as its closing track, that was the then-record-tying seventh and last top 10 single to come from it, peaking at #7 on the Cash Box Top 100 and #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It also topped the U.S. adult contemporary chart , making the song Springsteen's only #1 song on this chart to date. The song is a synthesizer -based, low-tempo number that features Springsteen on vocals.
4-444: The song's lyrics begin with the speaker's memories of his father instilling pride in the family's hometown. While it first appears that the song will be a nostalgic look at the speaker's childhood, the song then goes on to describe the racial violence and economic depression that the speaker witnessed as an adolescent and a young adult. The song concludes with the speaker's reluctant proclamation that he plans to move his family out of
8-710: The Born in the U.S.A. Tour , eschewing fast-paced cutting for slower montages of Springsteen and various band members. Despite its lack of visual excitement, it still managed substantial MTV airplay in late 1985 and early 1986. The B-side of the single, " Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town ", was a semi-comical live recording of the Christmas favorite from a Springsteen and E Street Band concert on December 12, 1975, at C. W. Post College on Long Island, New York . Long familiar to Springsteen fans from its distribution years earlier to rock radio stations, it had previously been released on
12-415: The A & M Karagheusian Rug Mill at Center and Jackson Streets of Freehold). Cash Box called it a "tender and somber look at the real American hometown" that is "evocative in rare way." Billboard called it a "contemplative, insightful single." The music video for "My Hometown" was a straightforward video filming of a performance of the song at a Springsteen and E Street Band concert late in
16-400: The town, but not without first taking his own son on a drive and expressing the same community pride that was instilled in him by his father. Some of the song's images reference the recent history of Springsteen's hometown Freehold Borough, New Jersey , in particular the racial strife in 1960s New Jersey and economic tensions from the same times (such as the "textile mill being closed" was
#740259