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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © 2007 Tom Flannery
715 words

SPRINGSTEEN'S LOST MAGIC

By: Tom Flannery

Bruce Springsteen is at it again.
 
Yes, he's released a new CD, "Magic," his first with the E Street Band in five years.  And, yes, he has a new hit song, "Radio Nowhere."  And, yes, he's also kicked off a tour this week.  But I'm not talking about any of that.
 
No, I'm talking about the fact that Bruce is using his stage -- wherever that stage may be -- as a soap box to assault his audiences with the kind of left-wing agitprop we've come to expect from the likes of Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell.
 
On Friday, he performed a live set for the Today show as part of the program's continuing outdoor concert series.
 
And, yes, he was at it again.
 
Bruce introduced one of several Bush-bashing, anti-war offerings on his new disc by reciting a litany of the Left's "greatest hits" of the past six years -- inveighing against voter suppression, illegal wiretapping, the Katrina response, blah blah blah!  Then came the song.  In short, the whole MoveOn.org agenda, but with a backbeat.
 
During the set, NBC cameras cut continually from the band playing their tracts -- er, songs -- to the response of the crowd, and the juxtaposition was jarring.  As the fans smiled and waved and danced jubilantly, Bruce sang lyrics like these from "Last to Die" (yet another anti-war offering):  "We don't measure the blood we've drawn any more/ We just stack the bodies outside the door/ Who'll be the last to die for our mistake?...Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break?/ Who'll be the last to die for our mistake?"
 
It was as if the Today show intercut crowd shots from another show -- say, a free-wheeling Rolling Stones concert -- with the Bruce segment.  The contrast was reminiscent of Bruce's anti-American song "Born in the U.S.A." being turned into a jingoistic anthem by his fans when it was released in 1984, inspiring flag-waving and patriotic fervor wherever he played it (much to the chagrin of The Boss). 
 
In these seemingly unrelated shots between Bruce and his audience, Friday morning's national audience was given a vivid depiction of the great divide that exists between far too many of today's "artists" and the people who go to their movies, buy their CDs and shell out money to see them play live -- or, more increasingly these days, those who used to.  Like me. 
 
Back in the 1980s, I saw my first Springsteen concert.  The experience was revelatory and Bruce's performance was transcendent, if I can use such language to describe a rock concert.  In his captivating four-hour-plus show, Bruce ran the full gamut of human emotions in thrilling fashion, from the exuberant joy of songs like "Cadillac Ranch" to the heartbreaking angst of "Racing in the Street" to the bone-chilling "Nebraska." 
 
While Bruce was decidedly apolitical back then, it was clear that he was pretty far over on the left side of the political spectrum.  Still, he wasn't wearing it on his sleeve, much less jamming it down your throat.  He was there to entertain -- and, boy, did he ever!  Today, that simple concept has largely been lost, ironically enough, by the entertainment industry.  

Watching Bruce and his band Friday morning, I couldn't help but lament how far the once-mighty E Street Band had fallen since that magical night some two decades earlier. I mean, I understand that guys get old, fat and start balding -- hey, that's life -- but it just doesn't play in rock 'n' roll. And while most Americans view this country the way Ronald Reagan did, through the biblical imagery (Matthew 5:14: "You are the light of the world. A shining city cannot be hidden"), that's not the way Bruce (or his fellow liberal elites) see it.
 
Indeed, Bruce couldn't seem to get through a song without his all-consuming fury about the War on Terror (a war for our very survival, it should be noted) breaking through.  Even when he was purportedly singing about hometown values, he couldn't help himself from raging at one point in the song:  "That flag flying over the courthouse/ Means certain things are set in stone/ Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't/ It's gonna be a long walk home."
 
Radio Nowhere, indeed!

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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