Won't Back Down: Heartland Rock and the Fight for America

One of America’s leading music journalists on heartland rock’s glory days and its role in the populist politics of the 1980s.

Hear “American Girl” or “Born in the U.S.A.” and, like it or not, chances are you begin to hum along. The soundtrack of grocery stores, pool halls, bowling alleys, flea markets, chain restaurants, drug stores, and political rallies—heartland rock, while beloved by some and derided by others, is inescapable even today. As rollicking as the music it describes, acclaimed...