listen. i love bruce springsteen. i love ethel cain. american teenager is not the new born to run. it is not born to run if it was written by a bi trans woman instead of a cis man. they are two very different songs in terms of sound and tone, and even theme-wise they run parallel to each other rather than down the same road.

a lot of ethel's music draws from/can be compared to a lot of bruce's songs, especially on his nebraska album, but i'm not seeing where people are getting the born to run comparisons from. if anything, american teenager reminds me of born in the usa if it was sung by the narrator's next-door-neighbor, a secondhand account of the suffering springsteen explores in first person in born in the usa.

also like. both of these songs can stand on their own just fine. a thing can be good on it's own without being compared to another thing.