Springsteen’s “Man’s Job” and our endless capacity for self delusion

“Man’s Job,” a little known track from Human Touch, presents an interim step on the journey into darkness and despair, before the lover is overwhelmed by loss, treating jealousy as something of a delusion or self-rationalization, the denial phase of grief, right up until the point it isn’t.

“Man’s Job” is the first of two songs on Bruce Springsteen’s Human Touch focused on jealousy and its impact on the human psyche.  The second, quite literally darker track, “I Wish I Were Blind,” comes later in the album, creating something of a contrasting pair.  In this view, “I Wish I Were Blind” can be seen as the collapse of the jealous mind, when love lost becomes so overwhelming it has a physical effect, changing the way we perceive the world and our place in it.  The vision is extreme and stark as the speaker first wishes he was blind and then claims all he can see is darkness, becoming blind in fact.  Jealousy’s impact is undeniable, though the mechanism may be subtle.  “Man’s Job” presents an interim step on this journey into darkness, before the lover is overwhelmed, treating jealousy as something of a delusion or self-rationalization, the denial phase of grief, right up until the point it isn’t.  The set up of both is simple and largely the same.  The speaker knows his love is with another man.  In “Man’s Job,” he begins by finding that man unfit compared to himself and attempts to convince her the new romance will end in disaster.  The opening verse takes on an almost passive voice, suggesting the break up and the new love are alright by the speaker.  His only concern is for the woman who has spurned him:

Well you can go out with him
Play with all of his toys
But takin’ care of you darlin’
Ain’t for one of the boys

Even this early in the song, hints that things aren’t quite what they seem, creep in, the same as the high pitched melody underlying the more mournful progression of the backing music.  There is the suggestion that the new lover might be wealthy, taking her out and in possession of a lot of “toys.”  Cars?  Mansions?  Private Clubs?  We cannot say for sure and that particular choice of language will be recycled in the lyrics later, but we get the impression the new couple is living lavishly and carefree, thoroughly enjoying themselves.  Of course, the speaker can’t simply accept this.  Anyone who’s learned their love has taken up with another would prefer to imagine there was some deficit or deficiency, at least most of the time.  We get glimpses of their potential happiness, but quickly push them away.  All of us are loath to believe the new love might be superior in some way and the former lover has made the right choice.  Here, the speaker quickly moves onto the fundamental rationalization underlying the song.  For some unspecified reason, the new love is simply not the right fit for her, whatever the woman may think at the moment.  Bad things will happen if she continues down this path, even if what those things may be are entirely unclear.  “There’s just “somethin’ in your soul, That he’s gonna rob,” and the speaker knows it.

In some sense, this is the flip side of why we fall in love in the first place.  No one can say for sure why some people seem to hit us right between the eyes simply by walking into a room while others who are ostensibly right for us generate no passion.  Nor can we say why love transforms us into irrational creatures, frequently making decisions against our own best interest, sometimes even decisions that we know are wrong and yet we proceed anyway.  The best we can say is that the heart wants what the heart wants.  In this case, the speaker inverts the normal process, believing that something in her soul is at risk due to what her heart currently wants.  The risk is not clear, but the solution is, of course, the speaker who positions himself as more mature, more manly than his rival:

…lovin’ you baby lovin’ you darlin’
Lovin’ you woman is a man’s man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby

The second verse builds on the first, but this time with a more obvious misdirection, common to many who have been in the same situation.  The speaker notes that “his kisses may thrill,” yet before completing the necessary follow up thought that they are currently thrilling his former lover, he turns to “Those other girls that he likes.”  The vagueness of the language – those others, somewhere out there – suggests he’s not certain there are actually other girls, but does reinforce the previous image of the new lover as something of a playboy or lady’s man.  This might not be true and we have no way of knowing for sure when it is possible this is just another defense mechanism, an attempt to at least in his own mind, make his lover feel jealous, bringing her back to the more faithful, mature man.  It is not uncommon for spurned lovers to convince themselves that heartbreak lies ahead, that “something in your soul” which will not be satisfied, indeed can only be satisfied by the spurned lover.  It is not surprising that the speaker continues to insist there is some unknown flaw in the new object of his lover’s affection, some inexpressible failure “when it comes to treatin’, A real woman right,” but the few facts we know suggest this is might be wishful thinking and self rationalization on his part.

So far in the song, the speaker hasn’t revealed anything we can take for certain as an actual flaw in his lover’s new relationship or really anything at all of actual meaning, as is typical in these situations.  We do not see lost love through clear eyes, every image is twisted by the heart, turned around, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  In the context of the song, the only thing we can really establish is that she has a new lover, and even the hazy details underlying the word choice are not exactly damning as to the state of it.  The new lover has “toys,” takes her “out,” and his “kisses may thrill,”  all can be seen as potential language where the truth starts to emerge.  None of these are normally considered negative qualities except when viewed from the perspective of the spurned, hinting at least a little that on some level, the speaker is jealous not only of his former lover but the man she has chosen.  We get another glimpse of this in the next line before returning to the chorus.  The speaker further rationalizes the efforts of his rival as mere “tricks,” saying “Well all of his tricks, No they won’t be enough.”  The nature of these tricks is left unsaid, only that, once again “Lovin’ you woman is a man’s man’s job,” a repeat of the overall rationalization that defines the song so far.  The rationalization itself is rather trite, almost meaningless, but meaning isn’t really important.  All self-rationalization, whether about love or otherwise, requires is an excuse.  The validity is irrelevant, merely that we have it and can wield it like a shield and a flimsy one will certainly work for most people.

In the third verse, however, the reality of the situation finally becomes undeniable to the speaker when he sees the new couple together or at least he imagines he does.  The truth, as ever in matters of the heart, doesn’t make much of a difference:

You’re dancin’ with him he’s holding you tight
I’m standing here waitin’ to catch your eye
Your hands on his neck as the music sways
All my illusions slip away

The underlying music of the song, a lilting melody so far, builds to the break, dramatizing the speaker’s revelation that things aren’t quite as he’s told them and the listener gets the impression of truly slipping away.  We don’t know if this means everything he’s said is false, or merely that he’s undoubtedly putting his own emotional spin on the situation, as is common in matters of love and loss.  Rather than accepting the reality that his former lover has possibly found happiness in another man, he’s convinced himself this man must have some flaw and the lover himself some need that only he can fully satisfy.  Her soul itself is at risk, she’s being tricked, the new love is not enough of a man for her.  He can assert this to himself for a time, whether or not it is even true.  He might have told his lover this himself given the song is unclear about whether or not he’s actually saying these words or simply having these thoughts, but thinking cannot change the reality that she has chosen another and perhaps with good reason. Maybe, just maybe, the new lover actually is a better man, a fact that seems tantalizingly possible in the final verse:

Now if you’re lookin’ for a hero
Someone to save the day
Well darlin’ my feet
They’re made of clay

The speaker confronts himself for the first time, and finds his entire person lacking.  He might well love the woman in question, but there’s something he can’t quite give her rather than the other way around.  The song itself is therefore flipped around, and we see it from the other side only at the end.  For all of the speaker’s protestations about the other man not being man enough, it is the speaker himself that failed to live up to her expectations and in all likelihood, was deservedly dumped.  Springsteen makes this plain in the next line, when he explicitly turns around a phrase from the first verse and applies it to the speaker.  Previously, the woman had “something in her soul” that the new lover would rob, but now it is the speaker himself, a fact probably far closer to the truth.  “I’ve got something in my soul and I want to give it up.”  Once again, we cannot say for sure precisely what this is, what flaw in the speaker prevented him from loving a woman he is completely infatuated with, what stopped him from being the hero that she needed, but regardless the speaker himself has failed and he knows it.  “Gettin’ up the nerve, Gettin’ up the nerve is a man’s job baby.”

Fear, we learn, has ultimately doomed his relationship, as it has so many others.  The song ends where it began, only the roles are completely reversed.  The speaker is the one who isn’t man enough and he knows it, even as he tries to rationalize his failings away, as all of us so often do. Of course, we have no reason to believe this is strictly true either. Reality, as usual, is likely between both extremes. Springsteen, meanwhile, has performed a rather neat narrative trick, reversing an entire perspective, both thematically and linguistically, from the self-rationalization of a spurned lover to the potential reality that the reason he’s been spurned is his own personal failing, moving from the realm of fantasy into one of near-truth, and in the process revealing universal truth:  You cannot love without letting go of your fear, for whatever reason.  Consciously we know this, but for many people, including the speaker, they still can’t let it go.  On an even deeper level, the song explores self-rationalization in general, how we all tell ourselves things that aren’t true in matters small and large, defending our sense of ourselves from the hard realities around us, at least for time.  Some can keep their rationalizations going until the day they die.  For others, the truth ultimately comes crashing through, demolishing the illusion.  Usually, however, some of the truth creeps in if only in the language of our thoughts, the words we used to describe a situation, hiding it from ourselves even as we know what lurks beneath.

Human Touch itself was a largely unheralded Bruce Springsteen album which generally focuses on the flaws in our relationships.  It can be seen as a cycle between Tunnel of Love and the brighter Lucky Town.  Thirty years after an underwhelming launch, the album has begun to reveal itself as a veritable map of the things that tear couples apart and the hard truth of what can bind them together.  It is worth a listen for anyone who wants to know what it means to truly love or simply if you are looking to rediscover lost classics.

MAN’S JOB

Well you can go out with him
Play with all of his toys
But takin’ care of you darlin’
Ain’t for one of the boys
Oh there’s somethin’ in your soul
That he’s gonna rob
And lovin’ you baby lovin’ you darlin’
Lovin’ you woman is a man’s man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job

Well now his kisses may thrill
Those other girls that he likes
But when it comes to treatin’
A real woman right
Well of all of his tricks
No they won’t be enough
Cause lovin’ you baby lovin’ you woman
Lovin’ you darlin’ is a man’s man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job

You’re dancin’ with him he’s holding you tight
I’m standing here waitin’ to catch your eye
Your hand’s on his neck as the music sways
All my illusions slip away
Now if you’re lookin’ for a hero
Someone to save the day
Well darlin’ my feet
They’re made of clay
But I’ve got something in my soul
And I want to give it up
But gettin’ up the nerve
Gettin’ up the nerve
Gettin’ up the nerve is a man’s man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job baby
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job woman
Lovin’ you’s a man’s job