Springsteen's New Album Is "Devastatingly Political"

Posted by Bernie Heidkamp at 6:23 AM on October 5, 2007.

This post, written by Bernie Heidkamp, originally appeared on PopPolitics

If I were asked to discuss the inspirations for PopPolitics, I could talk about all the great cultural critics who teach us to take pop culture seriously. But the deepest inspirations, I believe, are the great artists, the producers of pop culture, who never allow us to see their writing, directing, etc as simply entertainment -- who force us to recognize the human consequences -- the political consequences -- of their art.

They reveal these consequences -- not through didactic, overt rhetoric -- but by telling authentic stories that just happen to intervene in the social or political moment

Music, in particular, has been fertile ground. The continuum from jazz to hip hop has brought us Billie Holliday singing about the "Strange Fruit" of the Jim Crow South or Public Enemy and KRS-One speaking from a forgotten urban America. These artists have done more to raise our racial and class consciousness than any collection of academic studies or lectures ever could.

The music that is capturing my imagination at the moment, though, comes from a folk tradition, one that has brought the hobo lullabies of Woody Guthrie and the gritty poetry of Bob Dylan. Specifically, I'm talking about Bruce Springsteen, whose new album "Magic" has just hit stores this week.

The album is getting rave reviews (not to mention causing more than a few fans, like A.O. Scott of the New York Times, to use the opportunity for some humorous reminiscence and reconnection).

Most of the songs, from my own initial listen, are political allegories under the veil of intensely personal stories of relationships struggling to survive. That's what Bruce does best.

But don't take my word for it. Trust Harry Browne, writing for the usually cynical Counterpunch:

There has been a murmur afoot, since the album leaked on the internet in early September, that Bruce has (in the words of New York magazine's Vulture blog) "gotten the politics out of his system."

Politics for Springsteen is not, however, some infection to be purged, but apparently a part of his intrinsic make-up. Despite only a song or two that can remotely be said to be 'about' particular issues, and despite the absence of the lovingly detailed wretched-of-the-earth who occupied "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "Devils & Dust," Magic is a devastatingly political record, if not always in the predictable ways.

It is, for one thing, permeated with war, foreign and domestic, present and past. If this artist has spent two decades wandering the highways and byways of America in search of sounds and stories and themes, on Magic Bruce Springsteen comes home, to New Jersey (no more drawl), to rock & roll (the E Street Band denser than on any record since Born to Run), to the Sixties (for what is more homely than our memories of the period of our own youth?). And home -- the home-front, if you like -- turns out to be apparently comforting but also fraught, a place of lying, cheating, misunderstanding, and clinging on for dear life.

On Magic, the words 'Vietnam' and 'Iraq' are never sung, but the two wars and the two eras shout out to each other across the musical din.

If anyone is still doubting Bruce's intentions, check out his appearance on the "Today Show" last week (thanks to Tennessee Guerrilla Women for the heads up)

Even though Bruce is well into his fourth decade of writing and performing, he is still very much in the moment.

Tagged as: pop culture, music, anti-war, springsteen

Bernie Heidkamp is a Contributing Editor for PopPolitics.