#Springsteen Songs: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh)

De Vietnam oorlog, door Bruce Springsteen vaak bezongen, zo ook in dit nummer ‘A Good Man Is So Hard To Find (Pittsburgh)’, dat verscheen op de outtakes verzamelaar ‘Tracks’ uit 1998. Het nummer gaat over een weduwe en haar dochtertje nadat ze het bericht heeft gekregen dat haar man is omgekomen tijdens de oorlog. Springsteen schreef dit nummer tijdens de sessies voor ‘Born In The USA’, maar het haalde de plaat niet. Springsteen vertelde in 1999 aan Mojo Magazine het volgende over het ontstaan van dit nummer:

“The late ’70s and early ’80s was the first time when literature and films began to be made about Vietnam. There was a subtext on a few earlier things, there was a movie called ‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’ with Nick Nolte, but all of a sudden it began to become very directly addressed. It began with a strange experience when I was driving across the country and I stopped in Arizona at a chug store and I bought a book called ‘Born On The Fourth Of July’. I drove on to Los Angeles, and was at this little motel sitting at the pool and a fella came up, started talking and introduced himself: Ron Kovic. I thought, I must have met this fella, his name sounds real familiar, and he said, ‘I wrote a book called Born On The Fourth Of July’. I said, ‘Wow this is a real coincidence, I just read the book a couple of weeks ago.’ So Ron took me down to Venice to the Vet Centre, and I met Bobby Muller, who was the President of the WA at the time. One thing lead to another and it just began to surface in some of my music. There was a song ‘Pittsburgh’, which was actually written for Born In The U.S.A.”

It’s cloudy out in Pittsburgh, it’s raining in Saigon
Snow’s fallin’ all across the Michigan line
Well she sits by the lights of her Christmas tree
With the radio softly on
Thinkin’ how a good man is so hard to find

Well once she had a fella
Once she was somebody’s girl
And she gave all she had that one last time
Now there’s a little girl asleep in the back room
She’s gonna have to tell about the meanness in this world
And how a good man is so hard to find

Well there’s pictures on the table by her bed
Him in his dress greens and her in her wedding white
She remembers how the world was the day he left
And now how that world is dead
And a good man is so hard to find

She ain’t got no time now for Casanovas
Yeah those days are gone
She don’t want that anymore, she’s made up her mind
Just somebody to hold her as the night gets on
When a good man is so hard to find

Well she shuts off the TV and without a word
And into bed she climbs
Well she thinks how it was all so wasted
And how expendable their dreams all were
When a good man was so hard to find

Well it’s cloudy out in Pittsburgh