Known as “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen is a rock star; but he is a true “Old Folkie” at heart!
He has written tribute songs after national tragedies and now he has written a true protest song – harkening back to the old days of Folk Music and war protest songs.
The “Streets of Minneapolis” is a dedication to that cities’ residents who have seen their city overrun with masked bandits calling themselves federal ICE agents and have lost two of their citizens to said “officers”.
In the song, Springsteen writes, “a city aflame fought fire and ice ’neath an occupier’s boots” and refers to the “officers” gathered there as “King Trump’s private army”.
More lyrics include: “Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice,” The Boss sings. “Singing through the bloody mist/We’ll take our stand for this land/And the stranger in our midst.”
Springsteen said that he wrote the song last weekend after the killing of a nurse that video shows did not have a gun in his hand but a phone and was heading to lend aid to a protester. It was the second killing in a week.
Springsteen added, “it’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”
In a White House response, spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “the Trump Administration is focused on encouraging state and local Democrats to work with federal law enforcement officers on removing dangerous criminal illegal aliens from their communities — not random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information.”
Springsteen opens the song with himself and a guitar and builds to a full band that includes a harmonica solo. The song ends with chants of “ICE Out!”
After more artists cancelled events at the Kennedy Center, the iconic Performing Arts Center stated that there was no room for politics in music. Springsteen has showed them otherwise.
A staunch critic of the White House administration; that administration refers to Springsteen as being “overrated”.
In a battle of words, Springsteen told an audience in England that America “is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”
The White House response was that Springsteen is a “dried out prune of a rocker.”
English artist Billy Bragg also wrote and released a protest song titled “City of Heroes” which was released on Sunday. In a statement Bragg noted, that the song was inspired by Pretti’s killing and centers the bravery of the people of Minneapolis.”