God, if you take the chorus out of Springsteen's Born in the USA, it's a sad, sad song.

It's weird that people rock out so hard and happily to Springsteen's Born in the USA because it's a song about a Vietnam Vet who's been in jail, been denied a good job, is probably nearly homeless, and whose brother was killed in the war. Take a look at the song if written in a prose style without the chorus:

Born down in a dead man town. The first kick I took was when I hit the ground. You end up like a dog that's been beat too much, till you spend half your life just covering up. Got in a little hometown jam so they put a rifle in my hand, and sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man. Come back home to the refinery: hiring man said, "Son if it was up to me ..." Went down to see my VA man, and he said "Son, don't you understand?" I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong. They're still there, he's all gone. He had a woman he loved in Saigon. I got a picture of him in her arms now. Down in the shadow of the penitentiary, out by the gas fires of the refinery, I'm ten years burning down the road. Nowhere to run, aint got nowhere to go.

Gets me choked up watching the video having read the song like that. Watch it here.