Springsteen vs. Trump: Why Bruce is a magnificent example for the music world

When Woody Guthrie — the most committed voice and greatest agitator of consciences in American music history — died in 1967, his colleague Pete Seeger, another bard of social activism, declared: “Woody will never die as long as there are people singing his songs.” On Bruce Springsteen’s most recent tour, called the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour, the New Jersey musician closed his concerts with This Land Is Your Land, the most iconic composition by Guthrie — a man who, until a degenerative illness left him bedridden for years, sang and played his guitar across the the United States until his very last breath to fight against exploiters and the unscrupulous powerful. Guthrie’s guitar bears the famous inscription: “This machine kills fascists.” That guitar was never intended to represent physical violence, but rather a cultural antidote to right-wing extremists, the very same people who spewed hatred toward immigrants, the poor, women, and social minorities during the first half of the 20th century.

Without carrying Guthrie’s guitar over his shoulder, Springsteen brings meaning to the words of Seeger — with whom he sang at Barack Obama’s first inauguration in front of the Capitol in 2009. Woody Guthrie has not died yet. Because, fortunately, Bruce Springsteen is still very much alive. One might say that, at 76, the man behind Born to Run displays herculean strength — the might of a true colossus — like an impressive crusader wielding his own guitar: that Fender Telecaster which continues to thunder like a machine, bearing the same message as Guthrie’s. Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour was announced as a campaign to combat the abuses and excesses of the current U.S. president, Donald Trump, and his administration. As announced, the tour was intended to champion “American democracy and the Constitution, and everything currently under attack by our would-be king and his corrupt government in Washington.”

Once again, Springsteen has raised an important point: there are causes that are more important than stardom. And this isn’t just any stardom — he is one of the greatest rock musicians in the world. He has done this before, following the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but at that time, he was seeking to offer some hope in the face of widespread grief over a great tragedy. He wasn’t risking anything. Shortly thereafter, however, he did take a risk when, in 2004, he spearheaded the Vote for Change tour against the George W. Bush administration and its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That year was a turning point in Springsteen’s life because, after supporting humanitarian causes but distancing himself from all political discourse throughout his career, he took a clear stand on a specific political issue: ousting Bush from the White House. Since then, he has consistently taken an activist stance, using his music to directly and uncompromisingly criticize police abuses, the scams of Wall Street vultures, and the predatory policies of Republicans in his country.

He did just that when he released Streets of Minneapolis, a protest song against ICE — an agency he described as “Trump’s private army.” “It is dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, to our innocent immigrant neighbors, and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” Springsteen stated, referring to the two individuals killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of two, on January 7; and Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, on Saturday January 24. He was also seen performing at marches across the country protesting ICE’s crackdown on immigrants and its police brutality. He even performed Streets of Minneapolis on CBS during the penultimate episode of The Late Show — hosted by Stephen Colbert, a frequent critic of Trump, who maneuvered to get Colbert fired. And now, he has just completed a tour that ends with This Land Is Your Land — a tour through which the musician aims to bring the electric light of rock ‘n’ roll, with its power of community and human compassion, to “the dark times we are living in.”

These dark times are led by Trump and his circle, including billionaire technocrats who back him. While Trump is not a fascist in the classic mold of those Guthrie fought with his guitar, he is a wealthy figure who champions far-right policies and the think tanks that support them. As American writer Siri Hustvedt noted in the pages of this newspaper, Trump and his allies “are not conserving anything, because their goal is to destroy the government, attack universities, dismantle freedom of speech, pluralism and the rule of law, illegally imprison and deport undocumented immigrants and legal citizens alike, and churn out official lies incessantly. Many of them wish to establish a white, Christian patriarchal nation.” Springsteen — wealthy, male, white, and a believer — stands against this. Springsteen, despite not belonging to a persecuted minority, possesses a conscience. Just as Woody Guthrie did. Just as has always pulsed through the most transformative and admirable songs — those that, transcending the music business, address the great enterprise of humanity.

Those songs have always been capable of opening doors that reveal the outside world. In fact, they do so in an extraordinary way, with greater force and mobilizing power than a book, film, or painting. Such is the power of music. John Steinbeck himself acknowledged this when, upon hearing Tom Joad, the song Guthrie composed based on his novel The Grapes of Wrath, he exclaimed: “That son of a bitch! In seventeen verses, he’s captured the whole story that took me two years to write.” The Nobel Prize-winning author recognized that the soul of the the people, the very people he appealed to in his work with a sense of community and solidarity, was embodied in Guthrie’s music; the same musician who, before illness silenced him, penned the lines: “Change the pen and change the ink / change the way you talk and think / change the tubs and change the tires / change the things your heart desires.”

Springsteen has traded the comfort of his status as a multimillionaire star — someone who could simply coast on past success and remain self-absorbed for the rest of his days — for the sake of following his heart. It is a heart that beats in rhythm with the tens of thousands who listen to him in concert, even as thousands of others have decided never to listen to him again due to the stances he has taken, and even though he has received death threats. It is precisely in his towering stature as a star that his attitude is most admirable. While courage is always praiseworthy when one has nothing to lose, it is truly extraordinary when one has much — or everything — to lose. Yet, it is often those with the most to lose who risk nothing at all.

As history reminds us across the centuries, dark times are never times for silence, and certainly not for cynicism. Joe Strummer used to say that The Clash, from their punk trenches, fought fascism and sang against injustice because they sought to awaken the human being we all carry within: “We didn’t have solutions to the world’s problems, but we tried to think, and we never settled for complacency.” Striving to think has always been the essence of art and culture. Just as trying not to settle for the status quo is. For settling, there are beach chairs or massages.

Recently, in an interview with EL PAÍS, the Belarusian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Svetlana Alexievich put it this way: “We are at a moment when we cannot leave our lives solely in the hands of politicians; the intellectual elite must also get involved. This is what Plato spoke of — that there are times when intellectuals need to get involved, reflect on what is happening, and voice their opinions so they can take part in unfolding events. Yet we have left everything in the hands of politicians. But that is not reliable.” The author of Voices of Chernobyl continued: “People are tired everywhere. But fatigue is a poor advisor; it’s very dangerous to rush into decisions. I can’t stand listening to the political jargon used these days, like when [Donald] Trump talks about serious political issues, about war, about how the deal is going to be closed, about how the deal hasn’t been closed, about critical minerals, about people… It’s all the same. That’s why we need intellectuals. They must raise the level of reflection and understanding. A group of Hollywood screenwriters came to see me, and I asked them, ‘Well, how did Trump come about?’ They told me it’s because educational standards have declined. And, consequently, not only have educational standards declined, but so has the standard of political life. That’s why intellectuals must not stand on the sidelines.”

Springsteen isn’t standing on the sidelines. Springsteen hasn’t allowed himself to grow weary or complacent. He is the major historical musical figure most determined to speak out with his guitar against these dark times — times that perhaps have only just begun. He isn’t the only one. There are also, to a greater or lesser extent, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, John Fogerty, Elvis Costello, Pearl Jam, Jeff Tweedy and so many others…Yet none command the same power, tenacity, boldness and admiration as Springsteen: a man committed to remaining true to the flame that drove him to become a musician, that “canary in the coal mine” warning of potential explosions, as he once put it. He is a beacon, one that, hopefully, inspires the many musicians (including those in Spain) who cite him in interviews as an influence or point of reference. At 76, an age when that “bird” might be expected to lack the strength to fly, he is setting a final, living example through his colossal concerts. These shows currently close with This Land Is Your Land, preceded by the penultimate track: Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom.

And at this point, no matter how well one knows the man, no matter how much he has always shunned what is expected of him, and no matter how long ago he made the decision to stand on the opposite side of where the historical moment demands, the silence of Bob Dylan — the same man who gave up everything to meet Woody Guthrie and brought social consciousness to rock ’n’ roll — is now creating a deafening noise. Because Trump is not just another politician. Because his followers are not just another political movement. Because these are not simply passing times like any others. Because in these times of “me” there is a need more than ever for a “we.”

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