New Jersey is the only state in the nation that has never had a state song. Dr. Rich Lee, a professor at St. Bonaventure University, wants to change that.
New Jersey is the only state in the nation that has never had a state song.
Dr. Rich Lee, a professor at St. Bonaventure University, wants to change that.
Lee, who covered rock’n’roll before he became a journalism professor, believes New Jersey should make Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” the state’s official song. He will lay out his arguments for the designation on Friday in a presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Popular & American Culture conference in Philadelphia.
It won’t be the first time Lee makes the case for Springsteen’s signature song. In 1980, he wrote an op-ed article for The New York Times in support of a campaign to make “Born to Run” the state anthem.
“In my conference presentation, I will suggest that — based on the qualities and characteristics of state and national anthems, and given Springsteen’s body of work over the past 50 years — the arguments for making ‘Born to Run’ New Jersey’s state song are stronger today than they were in 1980,” Lee said.
To develop the presentation, Lee interviewed Carol Miller, who started the state anthem campaign when she was a disc jockey at WPLJ in New York. He also spoke with Robert Visotcky about how he convinced his father, who was then a state Assemblyman, to introduce legislation to make “Born to Run” the state anthem.
In addition, he conducted academic research on anthems and state songs, and he explored Springsteen’s accomplishments in the years since he wrote “Born to Run.”
The conference presentation, scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Friday at the Sonesta Hotel Philadelphia, is titled “Is It Finally Time to Make ‘Born to Run’ the Official Anthem of the State of New Jersey?” Conor Amendola, a Media Studies major at St. Bonaventure, assisted with the research and will take part in the conference.
Lee regularly incorporates music and other forms of pop culture into his classes and research. He has delivered presentations at three Monmouth University Springsteen symposiums. His most recent publication, “Nebraska: Then and Now?” was published in AMP: American Music Perspectives as part of a special issue on Springsteen’s Nebraska album.
As a journalist, Lee covered rock’n’roll in New Jersey during the early 1980s. In 1975, he penned an article for St. Bonaventure’s campus newspaper, The Bona Venture, predicting that Springsteen, who was then in the early stages of his career, was destined for superstardom.