Bruce Springsteen, born to run (his mouth)
Having told Trump to "put on a fucking mask" in 2020, the Boss now thinks that all those rockers dying young is just "a normal thing"
The album cover, featuring Springsteen leaning on E Street Band saxophonist Clarence Clemons’s shoulder, is considered iconic and has been imitated by various musicians and in other media. (Wikipedia)
Here’s what Bruce Springsteen had to say in 1975, when Born to Run came out, whereupon a star—the Boss!—was born:
In the day, we sweat it out on the streets
Of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory
In the suicide machines
Sprung from cages on highway nine
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, maybe this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Yes, girl we were
Wendy let me in, I wanna be your friend
I wanna guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ‘round these velvet rims
And strap your hands ‘cross my engines
Together we could break this trap
We'll run ‘til we drop, and baby, we’ll never go back
Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire?
‘Cause, baby, I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
Babe, I want to know if love is real
Oh, can you show me?
Beyond the Palace, hemi-powered drones
Scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the street tonight
Yeah, in an everlasting kiss, huh
One, two, three, four
The highway’s jammed with broken heroes
On a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there's no place left to hide
Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday, girl, I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go
And we’ll walk in the sun
But ‘til then, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Oh, honey, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Come on with me, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Now, here’s what Springsteen had to say in June of 2020, on his Sirius channel, E Street Radio, addressing Pres. Trump:
“I’m going to start out by sending one to the man sitting behind the resolute desk [sic]. With all respect, sir, show some consideration and care for your countrymen and your country. Put on a fucking mask.
“I had another show prepared for broadcast this week on this strange and eventful summer, but with 100,000+ Americans dying over the last few months and the empty, shamed response from our leaders, I’ve been simply pissed off. Those lives deserved better than just being inconvenient statistics for our president’s re-election efforts. It’s a national disgrace.
“So instead of celebrating the joys of summer today, we will be contemplating on [sic] our current circumstances with the coronavirus and the cost that it has drawn from our nation. We will be calculating what we’ve lost, sending prayers for the deceased, and the families they’ve left behind.”
ONE:
First let me qualify the snarky title of this post by noting that, back in the day (i.e., pre-COVID), I sort of liked Bruce Springsteen, though not enough to go see him play, or buy any of his albums. I thought his songs were pretty catchy, some of them, and admired his awesome energy onstage (when I caught him on TV); but I didn’t go for the grandiloquence of his lyrics, his posturing as a romantic “tramp,” or his overall “pretentious” sound (as Keith Richards called it). So I could take or leave him as an artist; yet I also thought, and often said, that “his heart’s in the right place,” as he seemed to be a pretty good guy, unpretentious, down-to-earth, and a committed rocker above all. (“That’s a tough one,” Richards said in 1988, “because I like the guy.”)
Then came the global terror of “the virus,” which ruthlessly exposed so many seeming dissidents and quasi-rebels—and all too many real ones—as desperate to comply with every groundless new “directive” cooked up by Dr. Fauci, and inescapably fed by the CDC (a military agency) throughout the land, and nearly all our minds. As in Orwell’s Oceania, there were no laws passed in Covidian America, so none of those “directives” had been subject to congressional debate or scientific scrutiny, but were mere topdown orders based, it seems, on Dr. Fauci’s whims; yet nearly all of our “iconic” outlaw-types (most of them in Hollywood), the “intellectuals” in Academia and the most noisily “progressive” solons in D.C. all bowed their heads, which thereby turned out to be nearly empty, devoid of anything but CDC talking points, and (therefore) fear, and rage at those refusing to comply.
How many great rockers, and other seeming-independent types, did not fall into line? For every one that used his or her head, multitudes revealed themselves as pods, as in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, their old selves vanishing into the phobic mass that put themselves under house arrest, faces diapered, then rushed to get the jab, and, all too often, closed their shows to the “unvaccinated.” “BE COOL. GET VAX’D,’ tweeted Paul McCartney, with this encouraging photo:
“I’m vaccinated, and happily so,” John Fogerty—composer of “Fortunate Son” and other antiwar anthems—told Forbes, adding (irrelevantly) that “I just happen to believe in medicine [sic].” Neil Young (“Rockin’ in the Free World”) and free soul Joni Mitchell (“Woodstock”) quit Spotify in fury over “irresponsible people [i.e., Joe Rogan] spreading lies that are costing people their lives,” as Mitchell put it, thereby doing precisely what she thus condemned. While once bold enough to talk about JFK’s assassination onstage during a Byrds concert (his bandmates ousted him because of it), David Crosby (“Almost Cut My Hair”) told a fan who asked if he “believe[d] in Covid vaccines,” “Of course I do. I took one . . . . You have to be a room temperature IQ [sic] not to understand them and ascertain that it is the correct move.” (R.I.P. David Crosby.) Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl not only got their shots (Grohl also pressuring the late Taylor Hawkins into getting jabbed), but collaborated on “Eazy Sleazy,” a song mocking the concerns of those who wouldn’t do it. (R.I.P. Taylor Hawkins.)
Even Keith Richards—though famously blasé about ingesting risky substances—added his tobacco-roughened voice to the pro-“vaccine” clamor, gently reprimanding Eric Clapton for his non-compliance (even though the latter’s first and only jab temporarily paralyzed his hands). “I just want to get rid of this damn thing,” Richards told Far Out, “and the only way I can see is everybody does as doctor says.” (“I love Eric dearly,” he added. “This Covid thing, it’s split people up and made people sometimes go awry [sic] for a while, you know?”) “Outlaw” Willie Nelson posted his “vaccination” on Facebook, writing, “Get your shot! Take care of yourself and others.” Family Hospital Systems, the Texas chain that gave Nelson his injection, posted its own delighted comment (echoing Paul McCartney): “Getting your Covid vaccine is Willie cool!”
I could go on, sadly—indeed, far more in sorrow than in anger, since it’s probably too much to expect most people overall, much less most rockers and others in the entertainment business, not to fall for so relentless and immense a propaganda drive, if only temporarily. People don’t know what they don’t know; and that’s why effective propaganda always wins—by blacking out the truth, or counter-argument(s).