Don't forget: Bruce Springsteen on 60 Minutes Tonight; Also: A History Of His Bush Admin Activism

[Hissyspit]

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Reuters - "Springsteen Ready for Criticism over 'Magic' Words:"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3019893



Springsteen at the Grammys in February 2006 - He ends the performance of the Iraq War-themed 'Devils and Dust' with the statement to the audience "Bring 'em home:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dASrcgK6ayU&search=bruce%20springsteen



Springsteen Opens his Tour Setlists in March 2003 with: Born in the U.S.A. (acoustic)/War



Springsteen's August 2004 Editorial in The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/05/opinion/05bruce.html

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

- snip -

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

- snip -

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.


Springsteen Defends The Dixie Chicks on his Website, April 2003:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0424-02.htm

Published on Thursday, April 24, 2003 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)
The Boss Rises to Dixie Chicks' Defense
by John Nichols

"America has entered one of its periods of historical madness," argues author John Le Carr, who suggests that the current drive by conservatives in Congress and their media allies to search out and destroy dissent is "worse than McCarthyism." That may sound extreme to some, but it certainly must ring true for Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines, whose mild criticism of President Bush in the days before the war with Iraq began has made the group target No. 1 for the Elite Republican Guardians of patriotic propriety.

- snip -

But Bruce Springsteen is not one to let his voice be frozen out by a free speech chill. The man whose song "Born in the USA" remains an anthem for patriots of many stripes - including those who see dissent as the truest expression of Americanism - has let rip with a defense of the Dixie Chicks and artistic free speech.

"The Dixie Chicks have taken a big hit lately for exercising their basic right to express themselves. To me, they're terrific American artists expressing American values by using their American right to free speech. For them to be banished wholesale from radio stations, and even entire radio networks, for speaking out is un-American," Springsteen said in a statement that was set to be posted today on the www.brucespringsteen.net Web site.

"The pressure coming from the government and big business to enforce conformity of thought concerning the war and politics goes against everything that this country is about - namely freedom. Right now, we are supposedly fighting to create freedom in Iraq, at the same time that some are trying to intimidate and punish people for using that same freedom here at home," added Springtseen, whose 2002 album "The Rising," a groundbreaking rumination on Sept. 11, 2001, and its aftermath, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and has been certified double platinum.

"I don't know what happens next," Springsteen said of America's current moment, "but I do want to add my voice to those who think that the Dixie Chicks are getting a raw deal, and an un-American one to boot. I send them my support."


'In Love With Pop, Uneasy With The World,' from The New York Time - Sept. 30, 2007:

And while the songs on “Magic” characteristically avoid explicit topical references, there is no mistaking that the source of the unease is, to a great extent, political. The title track, Mr. Springsteen explained, is about the manufacture of illusion, about the Bush administration’s stated commitment to creating its own reality.

“This is a record about self-subversion,” he told me, about the way the country has sabotaged and corrupted its ideals and traditions. And in its own way the album itself is deliberately self-subverting, troubling its smooth, pleasing surfaces with the blunt acknowledgment of some rough, unpleasant facts.

- snip -

“Magic” picks up where “The Rising” left off and takes stock of what has happened in this country since Sept. 11. Then, the collective experiences of grief and terror were up front. Now those same emotions lurk just below the surface, which means that the catharsis of rock ’n’ roll uplift is harder to come by. The key words of “The Rising” were hope, love, strength, faith, and they were grounded in a collective experience of mourning. There is more loneliness in “Magic,” and, notwithstanding the relaxed pop mood, a lot less optimism.

The stories told in songs like “Gypsy Biker” and “The Devil’s Arcade” are vignettes of private loss suffered by the lovers and friends of soldiers whose lives were shattered or ended in Iraq. “The record is a tallying of cost and of loss,” Mr. Springsteen said. “That’s the burden of adulthood, period. But that’s the burden of adulthood in these times, squared.”

In conversation, Mr. Springsteen has a lot to say about what has happened in America over the last six years: “Disheartening and heartbreaking. Not to mention enraging” is how he sums it up. But his most direct and powerful statement comes, as you might expect, onstage. It is not anything he says or sings, but rather a piece of musical dramaturgy, the apparently simple, technical matter of shifting from one song to the next.


'We Need to Talk About America' from The Sunday Times - Sept. 30, 2007:

“There are a lot of different ways I could address what had happened here over the past six years, and I realised, well, I don’t want to beat people over the head with it, first of all. Everybody’s lived through it — and, damn, that’s enough. And I’m not out there trying to replicate pop forms. I love using those sounds, but use them to what purpose, that’s the key.” It’s a furious album, I say, but surprisingly light. “Those are angry songs,” he replies, “but the lightness is intentional. It’s crucial. Because otherwise I’m on a soap-box, banging people over the head – with what? Anti-Bush messages? You have to make it personal. I love the seductive textures of pop music because they’re so beautiful and they bring you in.”

On Magic, he went back to first Bruce principles, to occupying his characters, to narrative. The “thread of realism” he sees running through the album, which culminates in the breathtaking stillness of the Iraq-vet story on Devil’s Arcade, is interrupted just once, by the upbeat 1960s pop of Girls in Their Summer Clothes. Yet that song contains possibly the most quintessentially Springsteen, lyric on an album crowded with heart-stopping images. “Things been a little tight,” says the narrator, “but I know they’re gonna turn my way.”


Better ask questions before you shoot/
The seed of betrayal is bitter fruit/
It's hard to swallow come time to pay/
That taste on your tongue don't easily slip away...

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - "Lonesome Day"

Released in June 2002.


What if what you do to survive/
Kills the things you love/
Fear's a powerful thing/
It can turn your heart black you can trust/
It'll take your God filled soul/
Fill it with devils and dust

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - "Devils And Dust"

Released in April 2005.


Who'll be the last to die for a mistake/
The last to die for a mistake/
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break/
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake

The wise men were all fools, what to do...

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - "Last To Die"

Released in October 2007.

[Loge23]

1. Consistent voice since the 70's

I saw my first Springsteen show on election night '76.
(The old Academy of Music on 14th St., NYC)
He was always very consistent and very vocal about our country's direction - even back then.

I am astonished by the criticism that he has taken, even at his shows, for his opinions. Perhaps the hecklers jumped onboard during the Born in the USA days and believed the phony Reagan hype. Bruce is strongly committed to our country (at least the one we used to have). The people who do not want to hear that at his shows need to go elsewhere for their entertainment.

[applegrove]

2. Thanks for the reminder.

[Terri S]

3. Still and forever the Boss!

Thanks for the reminder about 60 minutes. I LOOOOOOVE this man!!!!

[me b zola]

4. I'm looking forward to it

Very nice post, I really appreciate the time that you took to put it together.

[Hissyspit]

5. .

[DemGa]

6. Thanks, I almost never turn my tv on

I would've missed it.

[Hissyspit]

7. Ball game is over now, but I'm not sure if Bruce is first story or not. n/t

[Hissyspit]

8. .