News updated August 5, 2004"What's at the heart of it is still the same sort of questing after the country that you're carrying in your heart, the country that you want your kids to grow up in."
A few months back, there was a movement afoot to "Draft Bruce" for a proposed political concert that would go head-to-head with the GOP Convention. A statement from Springsteen's publicist read simply, "Bruce Springsteen will definitely not perform at any concerts tied to either the Republican or Democratic conventions." True -- but that wasn't to say that he didn't have plans of his own.
Back in the spring, a group of artists including Springsteen had begun to privately discuss how they could make a difference in the November election. The resulting Vote for Change coalition attracted a large roster of musicians that will be descending on swing states in October, pairing Springsteen and the E Street Band with R.E.M., John Fogerty, and Bright Eyes for five concerts from Philly to Florida (see further down this page for complete Vote for Change tour details).
On the Friday after the Democratic National Convention ended, Bruce Springsteen spoke with Backstreets by phone about the state of the nation, his motivations behind these concerts, misinterpretation of his songs, and how activism affects the artist/audience bond.
Interview by Backstreets Editor Christopher Phillips
©2004 The Backstreets Publishing Empire
Backstreets: You've supported a lot of causes over the years, but as political and socially conscious as a lot of your work has been, this is the first time you've really weighed in on electoral politics. So I guess the big question is, why now?
Bruce Springsteen: Basically, this is probably the most important election of my lifetime. I think that the government has drifted too far from American values. After 9/11, I was like everybody else -- I supported going into Afghanistan, and I felt tremendous unity in the country that I don't think I've ever felt exactly like that before. It was a moment of great sadness, but also tremendous possibility. And I think that was dashed when we jumped headlong into the Iraq war, which I never understood, and I talked about that on the road. I never understood how or why we really ended up there. We offered up the lives of the best of our young people under circumstances that have been discredited. I had to live through that when I was young myself, and for any of us that lived through the Vietnam War, it was just very devastating.
Along with that, the deficits, the squeezing of services like the after-school services for the kids who need it the most, the big windfall tax cuts, the division of wealth that has threatened our connection to one another over the past 20 years that is increasing.... these are things that as the election time neared -- I couldn't really keep true to the ideas that I'd written about for 30 years without weighing in on this one.
I don't think I've seen anything like it before in my lifetime. I think that the freedoms that we've taken for granted -- I spoke about this on the road a little bit, too -- they are slowly being eroded. In the past I've gotten involved in a lot of grassroots organizations that sort of expressed my views, and where I thought I could be of some small help. I guess I’ve been doing that for about 20 years, and that was a way that I was very happy to work. I always believed that it was good for the artist to remain distant from the seat of power, to retain your independent voice, and that was the way I liked to conduct my work. But the stakes in this one are just too high. I felt like, given what I've written about, the things that I've wanted our band to stand for over the years, it's just too big a battle to lay out of.
Backstreets: A lot of great, unique artists are coming together for these shows -- R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jurassic 5, Bonnie Raitt –- so I'm guessing that even with the unity of at least one common goal, there will be some different viewpoints. How much expression of that do you think there will be? Will we get different perspectives from different artists?
Springsteen: I would imagine so -- as different as all the artists involved. I think we've all come together with one goal in mind, but I think everybody's idea of where it goes from there could very well be different. Myself, I like John Kerry a lot. I don't think he has all the answers, or that John Edwards has all the answers, but I think they have the experience, the life experience, and I think they have the sincerity to ask the hard questions about America and to try to search for honest solutions. I believe they're going to do that. And I don't feel that way about the guys who are in there right now. I feel that trust has been broken, and there's no going back.
Backstreets: What did you think of Kerry's speech [at the Democratic National Convention]?
Springsteen: I thought it was fantastic -- the best one I've heard him give.
Backstreets: And using "No Surrender" for his entrance music -- is that something the campaign clears with you in advance?
Springsteen: No -- somebody mentioned to me that they'd heard it at different rallies here and there, around the country... but it was a nice call.
Backstreets: You've focused a whole lot more on issues than labels or parties over the years -- whether that's Democrat, Republican, Independent, Reform, Green, or anything else. That has appeared to be a very conscious decision, so in this case was it just that things reached a tipping point?
Springsteen: Yeah, I would say. I mean, I grew up in a Democratic house. The only political discussion I ever remember in my house was when I came home from school when I was little -- I think someone asked me at school what we were, it must have been during an election season at some point, and I was probably around my son's age, eight or nine. And I came home and said, "Mom, what are we?" And she said, "Oh, we're Democrats. We're Democrats because they're for the working people." And that was it -- that was the political discussion that went on in my house over about 18 years.
So I've always held progressive beliefs, or liberal beliefs. I think that when I went to write -- you're shaped by your background, fundamentally, there's no getting around it. I lived in a household that was caught in the squeeze, endlessly trying to make ends meet. My mother running down to the finance company, borrowing money to have a Christmas, and then paying it back all year until the next Christmas and borrowing some more. So I know what that's like. This time out, there just wasn't really any way I could sit on the sidelines.
Backstreets: That makes me think about that "criticism" you always seem to get: how can a millionaire still write about blue collar concerns? Something similar gets leveled at Edwards: he's the son of a mill worker, and yet he turned into a millionaire lawyer, as if one negates the other. But clearly those formative experiences help shape how you see the world.
Springsteen: That criticism is also a tremendously muddled idea of how writers write. First of all, have you ever been to Mark Twain's house?
Backstreets: No, I never have.
Springsteen: It's really nice [laughs]. The room he wrote in is beautiful.
Backstreets: It wasn't a whitewashed shack with a bunch of frogs hopping around outside?
Springsteen: No, it's a really beautiful Victorian home. So it's been done before! [laughs]... It seems to me that particular criticism gets aimed at musicians rather than, say, filmmakers. Nobody complains that Marty Scorcese isn't actually in the Mafia. It always comes up -- I've settled into the fact that I'll be answering that question for the rest of my working life. But it's a muddled understanding of the way that things get written.
Backstreets: Well, I hear you've been writing up a storm these days.
Springsteen: People say that all the time. I wish that were true!
Backstreets: Just wondering if we should be looking for any new material on the tour, if you've written anything for it specifically?
Springsteen: I'm always trying... I don't have anything until I have it, you know? Actually, I took a lot of time off -- Patti was working on her record, and so I've been spending time with the kids, and I enjoyed watching her work. I'm always writing, I'm always trying to come up with something, but until I have it, I don't have it. So I can't predict.
Backstreets: You've said that "a writer writes to be understood." And there's been so much misinterpretation of your songs over the years, the obvious ones being "Born in the U.S.A." and "American Skin (41 Shots)." For the most part, you've let your songs do the talking, but I'm wondering, in addition to the changes these shows are trying to effect in the country, if you think this will give your audience more clarity as far as the meaning and intent of your writing?
Springsteen: I don't know, it's possible. Basically, I have faith in the songs. And I also surrender to the reality that once your songs are out there, that you're simply another voice in the ongoing discussion to define them. That's just the way it plays. And that's okay -- I think they're out there to be debated, some of them. It's funny with "American Skin," I do run into people who thoroughly believed the New York Post's interpretation of that piece of music! But I've also run into a lot of people who completely understood what I was trying to say. And that's the way that it goes. When those songs go out there, then you add your voice to the chorus of people fighting for their definition and what they stand for. I have an edge, because I've still got the guitar in my hand.
But it's possible -- it's not something I thought about, but it may.
Backstreets: In the past when you've felt the need to define something more clearly -- I'm thinking right now of "Empty Sky" at the [2003] Atlantic City show, when you made it very clear what you intended "an eye for an eye" to mean -- what goes through your head when you decide to clarify things like that?
Springsteen: I have no compunction about stopping and telling someone what I mean. There's a moment to do that. And so, hey, I had the stage at the moment [laughs], and generally if I feel any sort of recurring misunderstanding that's occurred more than a few nights running, I'll say, "Okay, there's a few people...." Maybe there's 100, maybe there's ten. Maybe there's two. Maybe I'm just hearing the guy who's making the noise at that moment. But in the end, I am speaking to you. I'm speaking to you individually. And so I don't have a problem stopping at a particular moment and making clear my intentions. And now with the fabulous help of the Internet [laughs], those intentions are instantaneously around the world, and it helps clear things up even faster.
Backstreets: Well, hey, happy we could be of service!
Springsteen: Or muddle things even quicker, I suppose.... But when you have an audience the size of mine, that audience is broad. And when I spoke about the Iraq war during this past tour, before the truth came out, there were people who cheered, and there were people who booed. And that's the way it rolls. I tended to keep my comments down to approximately two minutes at the end of the night, which I felt was a pretty good balance to the three hours that we'd spent playing, you know?
I do believe that you serve at the behest of the audience. But, at the same time, I believe that my ideas and the beliefs that our band has stood for over the years are an integral part of our work, and we have a duty to make those ideas as clear as possible. To make our stand at different moments as clear as possible. I think that's part of what people look to us for, that's a part of what we have provided to a portion of our audience. And I think on any given night I'm playing to many of my audiences out there. There's the Tom Joad audience, there's the "Dancing in the Dark" audience, but hey, they're all there at that particular moment. So I look at it as a part of our process. You also figure, these are the times we're working in. And I think you've got to take your stand in them.
Backstreets: When some conservative fans bristled at some of that stuff last summer, like your mention of the Al Franken book, I think some people felt that it was a contradiction of your welcome to fans of all political persuasions. I guess I always just took that as, "Everybody is welcome here, but that doesn't mean that I won't speak my mind or challenge you on occasion."
Springsteen: That's right. It's pretty simple. I don't need people cheering everything I'm doing -- I don't go out expecting that, and we've done enough that I've seen both sides of the coin. And that's all right. The show is a forum of ideas. That's one of the things that we try to provide over the course of the evening. And as such, that's part of what you're getting when you walk through the doors.
Backstreets: Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who has been following you for any decent length of time. Some fans seem to have been taken aback by the posting of Al Gore's speech on your website, or the impeachment jokes onstage, but it seems to me that your political stance and your social concerns have been consistent for a long time.
Springsteen: Yeah, I would be surprised if there are longtime fans who were surprised. I could see somebody who sort of casually comes in and out depending on what you're doing, or on a particular song, but I think if you followed us over the past 30 years, our positions on most social issues have been consistent and straightforward.
Backstreets: Some people may have blinders on and just choose not to see it, or choose to take the "good parts" and leave the rest.
Springsteen: That's true -- I think that part of the audience/artist relationship is one of intense identification. "You're me, I'm you." That is a big part of the deal. And I think part of what we do is say, "Well, yeah, we are one. But we are not the same one."
I love John Wayne's work like crazy. I've found great inspiration and soul in it my whole life. I'm not a fan of John Wayne's politics. But I love John Wayne, and I love the work he's done. And so that's how it bounces sometimes.
Backstreets: So who inspires you not just artistically but politically as well? It looks like John Fogerty is going to be on the bill, and his songs seem to be a touchstone for you in that way.
Springsteen: Really, if I go back to it, when I was really young, even with Steel Mill, we did the local benefits, marches down to Washington in the late '60s. So the truth of it is, if you're in my generation and if you grew up in any part of the alternative culture, that was just a part of your birthright. Whether you want to call it activism, or concerned citizenry, that came as a part of those times. I find it unusual when I meet people who did not have that experience from my generation. They are out there, you know? But for me and most of my friends, those were things that were just a part of growing up when we did. And the people who we admired and emulated -- which for me obviously begins with Dylan -- had a very clear political voice. John [Fogerty] did it more subtly, but fabulously also.
And so I took my own spin on it. I couldn't exactly tell you why I started writing in that direction. It's funny, Steve [Van Zandt] went on to be one of the most political songwriters, but back in the early times, he was like, "I don't know if those should mix." [laughs] That's classic Steve -- when he goes, he goes! There's no coming back! That's Steve Van Zandt. [laughs]
But yeah, when I was very young, maybe it was because of my background, or because of the music that I liked -- I was interested in the class-conscious music of the Animals -- these are things that spoke to me and that I also wanted to address in my own music. That was really the way I came to it. I didn't have a political education when I was young, as I said, I didn't really grow up in a political family. The politics in my town were small-town politics. So it was something that, in truth, I really came to through popular music. Through a combination of the times and popular music.
Backstreets: As political awakenings go, I've always had the impression that the time around The River was big for both you and Steve, as far as getting out of the States and seeing our country through other eyes.
Springsteen: I know for Steve it was a tremendous awakening, that tour. More so for him maybe than for me, because I had kind of started to write about it on Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River already, really before we went overseas. But I know for Steve it was tremendous. We went to East Berlin together, and it was quite an experience, East Berlin at that time. It was real noticeable, what that does to you. And also, when you spend a good amount of time over there, you do have a moment to step out of the United States and look back with a critical eye.
If there was one single thing I'd like to give every high school kid in the United States, it would be a two-month trip through Europe at some point during the formative years. Because it's very difficult to conjure up a real worldview from within our borders. It's hard. It's hard because we're so big, and the hegemony of American culture is so weighty and so heavy that it's very difficult without stepping outside and realizing what it's like to have the next country just a two-hour drive away, to have a certain kind of interdependence that is different than what we have here. It's just a certain view of the way the world works that is different. So if I could give every young kid one thing, that would be it -- because it would broaden what we listen to, the way we perceive ourselves, the types of leaders we choose. It would change the nation dramatically.
I always remember going down to South America on the Amnesty tour and hearing incredible music, or going into Africa and seeing some amazing acts that opened up for us on that tour, and realizing that only a miniscule amount of people are going to hear this music back in the United States. Meanwhile, a six- or seven-piece rock band from Central Jersey is playing the Ivory Coast, and people who have barely heard our music before are going crazy. And we're speaking English, you know? The openness I've found outside the United States contrasted a bit to some of the closedness that we have here. And it’s not intentional – it's cultural. And it comes from a lack of exposure to other things.
Backstreets: What opened your eyes to some of those things initially? On the River tour you talked about the Joe Klein book, Woody Guthrie: A Life. Was that book pivotal for you?
Springsteen: That's a big book, a very powerful book. I was looking for ways that other people went about creating work that spoke to all of these things -- emotional, and social, and political, the environment of the day. How did other people do that? How did they balance their creative instincts and their political instincts? I was a very different creature in that, hey, I was a successful pop musician, and that changes the cards to some degree. But at the same time, what's at the heart of it is still the same sort of questing after the country that you're carrying in your heart, the country that you want your kids to grow up in. So I studied all of my forefathers very intently along the way. And I just put together something that felt right for us, and for me.
Backstreets: One of the purposes of art is to reflect our world back to us. And there's so much animosity and fear surrounding that right now -- a lot of people, the whole "shut up and sing" faction, seem to think that's not what an artist should be doing. But considering the folk tradition you're a part of, thinking about Woody Guthrie, "shut up and sing" is a real oxymoron.
Springsteen: First of all, there's a long tradition of artist involvement in the nation's social and political life. Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Public Enemy... not only was their music joyous and exhilarating, but it was timely. And it was essential, for me, to understanding some of the events of the day. When they spoke, I heard myself speaking. I felt a connectedness. So I think that any time somebody in this country is telling somebody else to shut up, they're going in the wrong direction. No, no, no, you're supposed to be promoting speech. You may like it, you may not like it -- I hear a lot of things I don't like, either, but hey. [laughs]
Also, if you listen to the airwaves and the level of discussion out there, we can't screw it up. It's already broke! It's screwed already [laughs]. So it's not like the musicians are going to come in and screw all this up now, you know? That's not going to happen.
Backstreets: It's amazing how violent some of the reactions have been -- like what happened to Linda Rondstadt last week in Vegas.
Springsteen: A tragicomedy... [laughs] The description of it was hilarious, you know? The idea that people actually got worked up enough to throw drinks, pull down concert posters, and storm the lobby or whatever, and that they felt the need to escort her off the premises -- for mentioning a film. That's scary. Or even the Dixie Chicks, who were pounded so relentlessly. So it's kind of crazy. But right now we live in very divided times; people's feelings about these issues are very intense, and people are going to have strong responses to anybody coming out and moving toward one side or the other. Particularly if it's somebody who you like, or whose music you admire. I think for a lot of people it severs a part of that artist/audience bond. But that bond is a little more complicated than that. It's just a little more complicated. I know what you're saying: I think we're waiting for the drums to start.
Backstreets: Considering how divided things are, ideally, what's your goal on this tour? What's the message, or the result that you're looking for?
Springsteen: Well, the best thing is that we have a very simple result in mind -- and that result is to change the administration in November. So at its core, it's a very direct goal. At the same time, working with MoveOn and America Coming Together, we're trying to get voters registered, trying to get people mobilized to vote, trying to get people out on the street to mobilize the progressive voters, to get people involved in the democratic process. That's the means to the end. But the end is very clear for this short tour: we're out trying to change the direction of the government, to add our voices to the folks who are trying to make a change at the top.
This interview with Springsteen will appear in the new Summer 2004 issue of Backstreets: The Boss Magazine, due this month. This issue, our 80th over 24 years, will also feature the Backstreets Interview with Patti Scialfa, our chats with Marah and Gary U.S. Bonds, an in-depth look at the Boss and the King to celebrate 50 years since Elvis Presley's first single -- all presented by Springsteen fans, for Springsteen fans. Subscribe now!
FURTHER READING:
"Chords for Change" by Bruce Springsteen, from the August 5 New York Times Op-Ed section
"The Politics of Dancing in the Dark," from Backstreets #78
Star-Ledger interview by Jay Lustig
America Coming Together
- Updated August 5, 2004
No comments:
Post a Comment