Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams

What I heard in Bruce Springsteen’s call to action

(Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)

As many of you know, I’m a pretty huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Since he’s been on tour, many people have asked whether I made it to the shows and, if so, what the experience was like. Not only did I attend his three shows in the New York area, I also went to his show in Washington, D.C.

A number of years ago, I was asked during a television interview, “Why do you love Springsteen?” I decided that the best way to answer that question was something Jon Stewart once said. Speaking about Bruce and the experience of seeing him in concert, Stewart said, “Do you like joy? Well, if you like joy, you should go check out a Springsteen concert.”

But as I said on the podcast recently, this time I was not immediately overcome with a feeling of joy because the circumstances surrounding this concert and this tour were a little different. It’s called Land of Hope and Dreams, but the context for the show, and the inspiration for the tour that Bruce Springsteen announced at the last minute, was a set of tragedies in Minneapolis, Minnesota: the ICE and Border Patrol shooting and killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. So joy isn’t the first word that comes to mind.

I felt, especially during the first concert, that there was an underlying sense of rage not just in Bruce, but in the audience. But it wasn’t a destructive rage or a pointless rage. It was a kind of righteous rage, a patriotic rage about what is happening to our country and why we’re not doing more to stop these terrible things from happening.

But don’t get me wrong, there was joy of plenty. The E Street Band was in rare form, and Bruce Springsteen brought his characteristic energy. I will note, however, for folks who are planning to see him in other cities, that he takes the stage very close to the advertised start time of 7:30. So if you’re thinking of arriving at 7:40 or 7:45, you might miss him playing “Born in the U.S.A.”

It was a pretty serious setlist, featuring songs like “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Death to My Hometown,” “Streets of Minneapolis,” of course, “Youngstown,” “American Skin,” “Long Walk Home,” “House of a Thousand Guitars,” and many others. As a result, it felt a bit more sober than some Springsteen concerts I’ve attended in the past.

But of course, the big treat was the appearance of Tom Morello. Somewhat fittingly, given the theme of quiet rage, Morello is best known as a member of Rage Against the Machine. And though I’ve heard him and Springsteen perform “The Ghost of Tom Joad” together on YouTube, nothing prepared me for hearing this rendition live.

It seemed that not everyone in the audience knew the song, or at least all the words to it, and some may not have been familiar with the collaboration between Tom and Bruce. But when Tom Morello stepped up to the microphone and sang the following lyric, it hit me in a way I hadn’t experienced before:

Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand, or a decent job, or a helping hand. Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free, look in their eyes, ma, and you’ll see me.

(Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)

Now, as familiar as I am with the power of Bruce’s songs and Bruce’s spirit after seeing him dozens of times, it’s less common to be struck by the power of his words. He didn’t overdo it, but from time to time he made comments about the state of affairs in this country, comments that many, if not all, of you would agree with. He also made respectful reference on several occasions to Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

At one point, he gave a short speech, about four or five minutes long, but boy did it pack a punch. He began by saying that we are living through troubled and troubling times, and then he described a number of issues that we’ve discussed on the podcast week after week. He talked about what he called an unwise and illegal war, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, violations of due process, the undermining of the Justice Department’s independence, the Comey indictment based on seashells, the eradication of USAID, the damage done to NATO, the whitewashing of history, and much more.

But I will say that the most significant applause, and the most sustained cheering, that brought tens of thousands of people to their feet on each night I attended came when Bruce delivered the following message:

Honesty, honor, humility, character, truth, compassion, humanity, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength and decency, don’t let anybody tell you that these things don’t matter anymore. They do.

And the crowd, as they say, went wild. They were responding to a simple list of qualities that every voter in America has a right to expect their leaders to possess. Bruce went on to say about those qualities:

They are at the heart of the kind of men and women we are, the kind of citizens we want to be, and the kind of country we want to leave for our children.

Now, what about that rage I mentioned? It’s something I feel often, and I suspect many of you do too. Well, at the end of the concert, Bruce seemed to address it indirectly.

Near the end of the show, he reminded the crowd of the very last words spoken by Renée Good to the officer who, moments later, would shoot her dead. Through the window of her car, she said, “I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at you.” And then she was dead. Bruce then delivered an important truth:

There is no one coming to save us, we’ve got to do it ourselves. So join us, and let’s fight for the America that we love. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?

And so I’ll end my thoughts the same way Bruce did at the end of each concert. God bless Alex Pretti and Renée Good, God bless you, and God bless America.