"Born in the U.S.A." is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen and released in 1984 on the album of the same name as its opening track. One of Springsteen's best-known songs, it was ranked 275th on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and in 2001, the RIAA's Songs of the Century placed the song 59th (out of 365).

"Born in the U.S.A." has been widely misunderstood.[10][11][12] It has been treated as a flag-waving paean to America by politicians like Ronald Reagan and Pat Buchanan, reacting to the patriotic tone of the song's chorus, without seeming to acknowledge the bitter critique of American policy and society present in the lyrics.[12][10] The song presents a disillusioned Vietnam veteran as a tragic figure alienated upon his return from the war.

Historians Jefferson Cowie and Lauren Boehm, writing in American Quarterly journal, identified three main themes. First, the emotional structure of the song with tension between a repetitive chorus of jingoism and narrative verses of resentful disillusionment. Second, the Vietnam War as symbols, "to the social and economic siege of American blue-collar communities." Third, "economic devastation, which uproots the material basis of working-class identity only to replant it in the acidic soil of nationalism." The article quotes Springsteen saying that the working-class man was facing,

"a spiritual crisis, in which [he] is left lost. It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his job. Isolated from his family ... to the point where nothing makes sense."[4]