Tag: Bruce Springsteen

MAR 22, 2012 - There is more praise for Bruce Springsteen's new album "Wrecking Ball", this time by Leonard Pitts Jr. on NationalMemo.com, saying that Bruce "captures the state of America". He goes on to say that Bruce is "one of the elder statesmen of American popular music," and with the songs on the new album "delivers what might fairly be called a State of the Union Address. And if that sounds grandiose for a rock album, so be it. But know that, for all the manicured eloquence of the constitutionally mandated report President Obama delivered in January, the new Bruce Springsteen album, "Wrecking Ball," captures more raw emotional truth about the state of the American Dream than any politician ever could."

Read more on NationalMemo.com here.

MAR 5, 2012 - Laura Clawson over at Daily Kos has a great review and article about Bruce Springsteen's new album, "Wrecking Ball", and how he has cranked up his musical activism recently, and has really captured the Occupy movement in song and prose.

Laura wrote, "[Wrecking Ball] contains some of the most political music he's written. It is also, in places, deeply gospel-inflected, with the political and spiritual knitting into a moral argument. We may be lost, individually or as a society, we may be oppressed and barely clinging to hope. But we can't believe either that it's good enough for things to be better in the next world (there's no "you'll get pie in the sky when you die" on Wrecking Ball) or that the fight for something better in the here and now is anything but a fight for our souls and the soul of the nation." Bruce's 17th album "Wrecking Ball" will be out tomrrow, March 6. Check out the article over at Daily Kos here, and listen to the track "Death To My Hometown" from the upcoming album  below.   (Photo credit Lord_Henry/Flickr)

FEB 13, 2012 - Bruce Springsteen, long known for his activism, opened up with a song at the Grammy Awards Show last night called, "We Take Care of Our Own", a new song from his upcoming album, "Wrecking Ball". He was met with a standing ovation and cheers, and chants of "Bruuuce!". The song has lines such as, "From the shotgun shack to the Superdome, We yelled help but the cavalry stayed home", and "Where's the promise, from sea to shining sea, We take care of our own". Many are taking this song to be a statement on the government's response to Katrina, jobs being outsourced, and the American dream being threatened by recent actions such as attacks on unions and teachers and government entitlement programs. There is another version of the video Bruce released, which contains images of working people, a group Bruce has long supported and fought for over the years. Watch Bruce singing "We Take Care of Our Own" when he opened up the Grammys last night, and then a black & white "studio version" below.
(Photo credit: Thomas Uhlemann/Wiki)

Conservative Internet/Radio show host Glenn Beck, after listening to "Born In The USA" for over 20 years, finally really listened to the words and realized it was not some right wing patriotic jingoism. He stated, "You get filled with patriotic pride, and then you find out that Bruce Springsteen's 'Born In The U.S.A.' is anti-American." Listen to the entire diatribe below posted by Media Matters.
 

Photo credit: Helge Øverås Wikipedia

Bruce Springsteen, a big-time musical activist and supporter of unions, is hitting the road with his E Street band in 2012 starting in England and is sure to end with concerts in the USA. On his website he says that he and his band "are all incredibly excited about everything that we're planning for 2012. That's all the info we have for right now, but we'll get back to you--real soon." Check out his website here. Below is a video in support of Occupy, Tom Joad.