Were they all Just lost in the flood?

Lost in the Flood (click title of these post to hear live) is one of the boss's most important songs from his debut album in 1973, "Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ". It continues to be relevant today covering timeless and haunting topics such as blind commitment to the military, corruption in politics, fearless Street racers, trigger happy police officers, and desensitization to gang violence. As you can see in this recent performance (2009), it is still played live and is often requested at Springsteen shows.

The slew of nameless characters (aside from the fearless streetracer the kids call Jimmy the Saint) are lost in the flood of the reality of their situation. The Soldiors, "Ragamuffin gunners", are coming home to a country more scared and confused than when they left. The war he thought was just a little mud, in reality is quicksand sinking him and his country into more expensive fighting and fear mongering.

The second verse begins, "That pure American brother, doll-eyed and empty-faced, races sundays in Jersey in a Chevy stock '68. He rides her low on the hip on the side he's got bound for glory in red white and blue flash paint/he leans on the hood telling racing stories/the kids call him Jimmy the Saint". Although Jimmy the Saint "races head first into a hurricane," and literally gets "lost in the flood", he lives on as a symbol of America's fascination with speed and danger. The kids look up to Jimmy as an Icon, an Evil Canevil of sorts. The verse says a lot about how our country idolizes that kind of asinine bravery, compared to the soldiers of verse one who are "dressed in drag for homicide" and don't seem to be looked up to with the same kind of courage. After the Junk clears from the horizon, the narrator speaks bluntly to the youth, "Hey kid, you think that's oil? Man that ain't oil, thats blood! I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm...or was he just lost in the flood?"


The last verse is a short scene from a bronx street corner, where "8th avenue sailors in satin shirts whisper in the air." The dynamics of the song quickly fade and you can almost feel the calm quiet day on the street. Suddenly, all hell breaks lose as a young man is shot by some over-reacting police officers.
The story ends like this,
"Bronx's best apostle stands with his hand on his own hardware 
Everything stops, you hear five quick shots, the cops come up for air 
And now the whiz-bang gang from uptown, they're shootin' up the street 
And that cat from the Bronx starts lettin' loose, but he gets blown right off his feet 
And some kid comes blastin' 'round the corner, but a cop puts him right away 
He lays on the street holding his leg, screaming something in Spanish, still breathing when I walked away" 
At this, we get the message that we can't always fight what we are up against. There are wars and hurricanes and shootings and as a community of people we have to learn to deal with them together. An interesting way of looking at the event follows as a pair of bystanders conversation end the song..."And somebody said, "Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud" I wonder what the dude was sayin', or was he just lost in the flood? 
Hey man, did you see that, those poor cats are sure messed up 
I wonder what they were gettin' into, or were they just lost in the flood?"