Occasionally, Rooksby's English university background gets the better of him, particularly in the section where he advises writers not to use the same sort of language that dominated Springsteen's writing in the first decade or so of his career. As Rooksby writes, Springsteen's lyric writing "has many virtues but it has patches blighted by one particular cliché, which can be summed up in three dangerous words: 'pretty', 'little', and 'girl':
So we find "All the little pretties" ('Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out'), "I met a little girl" ('Stolen Car'), "Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?" ('I'm On Fire'), "And drove that little girl away" ('Racing In The Streets'), "little girl" ('Promised Land'), "Hey little girl" ('Darlington County'), "pretty little miss" ('Working On The Highway'), "Little girl, I wanna marry you" ('I Wanna Marty You'), "Little girl with the long blond hair" ('County Fair'). The problem is that both "little" and "girl" tend to diminish. Putting them together doubles the effect, one that is hardly suitable to apply to a grown woman. The effect is to suggest a certain dumb machismo on the part of the speaker. This is unfortunate, because it confirms the suspicions of people who are prejudiced against Springsteen's work.I certainly understand his point (and hopefully he'll write the same sort of thing if he ever gets around to covering "The Songwriting Secrets of Eminem"). However, as somebody who worked for a decade beginning in the late '70s in a South Jersey liquor store, and spent more time than he'd normally care to admit in Jersey dive bars, Springsteen's lyrics--especially his 1970s and early 1980s lyrics, when he was at the height of his commercial and critical success--are a pretty accurate reflection of how many lower middle class young men in New Jersey talked back then. (And probably still do.) There's a reason why Springsteen built such an enormous following on the east coast early in his career--he was one of them, a legitimate "working class hero".Furthermore, such demeaning references sometimes introduce a note (probably unintended) of condescension.
So in 'Dancing In The Dark' the unnecessary "little" in "Worrying 'bout your little world falling apart" makes it sound as though the speaker thinks his woman's world is of no matter (she might see it differently!). Similarly, in 'Racing In The Streets' the word "pretty" in the line "And all her pretty dreams are torn" implies her dreams are not worth much and she wasn't mature enough to see through them. But again, maybe now she would rather have stayed with the dude from LA in his Camaro than with the guy who spends his evenings racing in the streets.
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