Springsteen Gets Political on Today Show

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/28/101850/975

Springsteen Gets Political on Today Show
by rjmac
Fri Sep 28, 2007

Bruce Springsteen, promoting his new album by doing a concert "in the plaza" on the Today Show, did a spoken intro to "Living In the Future" that was an overtly political public service announcement.

After Clarence Clemons played the sax intro for the song, and as the band vamped in the background, The Boss opened with some lighthearted banter and NBC-centric jokes and then got serious:

This is a song called Livin' In the Future. But it's really about what's happening now. Right now. It's kind of about how the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston... the Bill of Rights [holds up microphone, urging crowd to cheer] ... v-twin motorcycles... Tim Russert's haircut, trans-fats and the Jersey Shore... we love those things the way womenfolk love Matt Lauer.

But over the past six years we've had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of that great city New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution. And the loss of our best men and women in a tragic war.

This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here.

So right now we plan to do something about it, we plan to sing about it. I know it's early, but it's late. So come and join us.

Springsteen's new album, Magic, has political themes woven into the songwriting, but it was surprising and inspiring to see him bring it to the forefront on television's most popular morning program.

Tim Russert, who did as much as anyone in the media to enable the Bush regime, was standing near the stage, but the camera wasn't on him during Springsteen's pointed comments. Would have been interesting to see his reaction, but, then again, clowns like Russert somehow always seem to think they had nothing to do with legitimizing the lies told by Cheney, Bush, and all the others.

Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Today Show

To see Bruce perform and get political:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20995086/