I hope you’ve had a chance to see Bruce Springsteen’s newest single. Here’s the video:
Springsteen, it seems to me, is Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash all wrapped up into one. But he really isn’t quite as anti-establishment as his mentors. That’s probably why I love him the best of the four. I’m not really interested in being anti-establishment. I’m interested in taking power from the bastards and then being the establishment. Springsteen represents my values. Not just because he’s from Jersey, but because his vision isn’t about what’s wrong with this country but what’s right, or what can be made right with the right amount of organization and effort.
I feel ya, BooMan. I understand where you’re coming from with this .
Just to double down on this point (or, since it’s Sunday morning, say “Amen”), this video is a good little example of what Jesse Jackson spent a good chunk of the 1970s, 80s and 90s talking about when he said (paraphrasing), “In the Movement, we took up the flag and picked up our Bibles, and we marched to make the American dream a reality. Somewhere along the line, we put down the flag and the Bible, and when we turned around, other folks—some of them the same folks who had opposed the Movement—had picked them up. We need to pick up the flag; we need to pick up the Bible; and we need to start marching again!”
Springsteen’s been thinking about this for decades now. He’s very conscious and precise about what he writes and what he says, and the symbols he uses. For many of his songs, including this one, he puts “the blues” in the verses and “the gospel” in the chorus.
As Tris McCall, music reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, observed: “Bruce Springsteen is a cagy guy. Everything he does is on purpose, and his choice to make this song a singalong was strategic. At some point later this year, he’s going to come charging out on some grand stage in New Jersey, and he’s going to get you to sing “we take care of our own,” over and over. He wants to get it stuck in your head. More importantly, he wants to get it stuck in your heart.”
It’s just one song, and he’s just one artist/citizen. But make no mistake: this song/album/tour is one artist/citizen’s intentional contribution to making of a “big-hearted America” (and the re-election of President Obama).
I love where Bruce Springsteen comes from. I learned to love his music thanks to my wife.
I watched the video and I wondered why there were only white people in it though.
Just guessing here, but a couple of possible reasons:
*music videos are ads: he’s selling to his (overwhelmingly white) audience;
*there are people of color in the video, just not very many of them—could be a subtle but intentional targeting of “Reagan Democrats” by putting them front and center in the video, there’s a greater chance of persuading them that Springsteen’s/Obama’s vision of America is for them more than Romney/Santorum’s vision his.
I’m more of a Mellencamp fan — especially Lonesome Jubilee/Scarecrow-era Mellencamp — than a Springsteen fan, but I’m with you on Springsteen.
The problem with political music is that 95% of the time, the artists focus too much on getting a message out instead of focusing on the music. Springsteen brings good writing, nice little hooks, etc. They’re great song whether you get the message or not.
Plus, unlike Dylan, you can actually understand what the hell he’s saying. 🙂
interested mainly in making money. If you want to mention somebody in the same line with Woody Guthrie you oughtta make it Pete Seeger. Listen to Springsteen talk about Pete sometime.
Ed, there’s just nothing quite so great as Bruce on the Seeger tapes and during the inaugeration to see Pete swing up on the stage and sing alongside Bruce was one of the all time best moments.
Oh Mary Don’t You Weep
i surely hope that title is meant to be ironic, because in America we don’t take care of our own.
Our old people live in penury if they don’t have a pension or a massive savings to support them beyond social security.
Our kids go to college for jobs that don’t exist and rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt.
We sure as fuck don’t take care of people facing foreclosure (but we sure go out of our way to make sure the banks get little more than a slap on the wrist).
No, in America we don’t take care of our own. More like “I got mine and if you don’t watch out,I’m gonna steal yours.”
I’ve recently been watching Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary, “When The Levees Break”. It will tear your heart out and leave you even more pissed…
That documentary may be Lee’s greatest work. Everyone should see it.
We bought the DVD along with Lee’s newer look at NOLA, If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise, shot 5 years after Katrina. After we’re finished with it, it goes to family and friends, then we’ll donate to the local library. I was upset they didn’t have a copy. As you say, everyone should see it. I had family there in NO, once upon a time and I guess I still feel a connection. It truly is a place like no other.
I don’t think it’s meant to be ironic. It’s supposed to shame.
and well it should. our country has spiraled into an abject embarrassment.
But it is also meant to inspire. To lift us higher with knowledge of the potential in our country, in ourselves, that we have always known to be true. That we can truly recognize the goodness in one another, beyond race, color or creed; to know that we belong to one another, that we ARE one another, as Americans, and as human beings.
Sorry… but this one got to me. First time I’d hear it the whole way through. Amazingly, many decades into his career Bruce is still a great artist. How rare that is. This is as good as anything he did during the “peak” of his career. He has officially become an American Treasure, in the very best sense of that phrase.
Thanks, Bruce, for the Democratic anthem of 2012. It will go down in history with Don’t Stop, Yes We Can, and Happy Days are Here Again.
Yes, indeed, we do take care of own. But we still have work to do. And we will do better job tomorrow.
And this is why the establishment fights anything that challenges it; otherwise, it wouldn’t be the establishment.