Reason To Believe

Way back in the day, I used to always forget that the song 'Reason To Believe' is on Nebraska. I think it just seemed too upbeat to me to fit on that record. For some reason I never really gave the words enough consideration to realize that it's one of Springsteen's darkest songs. Once I did, the upbeat, practically jaunty, vibe just drove his point home all the more. Taken in context, the 'people find some reason to believe' line (which, superficially, sounds positive) is practically spiteful. The song is hopeless (at best), sarcastic and bitter, misanthropic even (at worst). If it belongs on any album (which it does, because it's great, but which I wish it didn't, cause it's depressing) Nebraska's the one. According to biographers, Springsteen was in a fairly significant depression when he wrote and recorded these songs (by himself, cut off from his usual musical co-conspirators). Whatever. I guess it's his blue period, as it were.

Anyway, I was thinking about that song (which I still, years after letting its meaning sink in, have a love/hate relationship with) because of this one verse:

"Take a baby to the river, Kyle William they called him
Wash the baby in the water, take away little Kyle's sin
In a whitewash shotgun shack an old man passes away
Take his body to the graveyard and over him they pray
Lord won't you tell us, tell us what does it mean
Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe"

I remember, as a teenager in my Toyota Supra, the moment I realized it's Kyle William in the whitewash shotgun shack too. Heavy, man!


The last two times I've been in church, both in the past month, have been for a baptism and a funeral. I feel kinda messed up by my Dad's death. And tho it wasn't my son being baptized, he's of that age. I feel this lyric has come to life for me, in ways that I couldn't have imagined in the Supra. If only the thing had a shred of hope to it.