Born On The Fourth of July - Cultural References

Cultural References

  • Bruce Springsteen dedicated his 1978 performance of "Darkness on the Edge of Town" live at Winterland to Kovic, saying that he read Born on the Fourth of July, and "loved the book a whole lot." He frequently mentions the book, and his chance meeting with Kovic, before playing his song "Shut Out the Light":
"Oh…when I was nineteen…I got my…my draft notice…it was 1969 …and, uh, Vietnam War was going on…at the time I don’t remember having any real political convictions about it, I just knew that, that I didn’t wanna die…and I didn’t go, but uh…but I was traveling through Arizona in the, about ten years after that, in the late ‘70s and I bought a book called “Born on the Fourth of July” by a Vietnam veteran named Ron Kovic…and, uh, it was his story about going and coming home to find out that his home wasn’t there any more…we went on to Los Angeles and I was staying in a little motel and there was a fellow sitting by the side of the pool in a wheelchair…and I had the book with me and he said “Man, I wrote that book”…this song is called “Shut out the lights” it’s about leaving home and…not being able to find your way back…" —Bruce Springsteen, Parc De La Courneuve, Paris, France
  • Folk musician Tom Paxton adapted the book into a song of the same title.
  • American punk rock band Green Day references the title of the film in their song "21st Century Breakdown".
  • American rock band The Killers make an allusion to Born on the Fourth of July in their song "Sam's Town" on their album of the same name.

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    “All cultural change reduces itself to a difference of categories. All revolutions, whether in the sciences or world history, occur merely because spirit has changed its categories in order to understand and examine what belongs to it, in order to possess and grasp itself in a truer, deeper, more intimate and unified manner.”
    —Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)