Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Promised Land


Bruce Springsteen

“A lot of the core of our songs is the American idea: What is it? What does it mean? ‘Promised Land,’ ‘Badlands,’ I’ve seen people singing those songs back to me all over the world. I’d seen that country on a grass-roots level through the ’80s, since I was a teenager. And I met people who were always working toward the country being that kind of place. But on a national level it always seemed very far away.

“And so on election night it showed its face, for maybe, probably, one of the first times in my adult life,” he said. “I sat there on the couch, and my jaw dropped, and I went, ‘Oh my God, it exists.’ Not just dreaming it. It exists, it’s there, and if this much of it is there, the rest of it’s there. Let’s go get that. Let’s go get it. Just that is enough to keep you going for the rest of your life. All the songs you wrote are a little truer today than they were a month or two ago.”


Refrain from The Promised Land:

The dogs on main street howl,
'cause they understand,
If I could take one moment into my hands
Mister, I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man,
And I believe in a promised land.

If you like the Boss, there's an amazing amount of live footage from over the years on YouTube. My favorites are The River on the street in Copenhagen in the 80s and Thunder Road live in 1976.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Boss is a great example, along with Bob Dylan, of "the emperor has no clothes". The same may be said for almost all popular music from the US. The Doors are an exception.

As Liam Gallagher has said, "Americans have bad taste." They also have no musical talent compared to the British Isles. None.

The US was born in a violent repudiation of British identity. The result is a country without blood and therefore without culture. The same is true of all New World states except Canada.

Born to Run = the only Springsteen song.

Anonymous said...

^^

Heh. A "cultural imperialist" troll.

Donald Pretari said...

I love The Boss. Since you're into probability, what's the answer to this:

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse

Don the libertarian Democrat

Steve Hsu said...

Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse

Don, nice :-)

Nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Anonymous said...

"Nothin' feels better than blood on blood"

Jibbersih to me. The Boss is sh@t.

Have fun under Jewish rule.

Anonymous said...

bush acted a jewish script, but obama is Jewsish puppet.

Jeff K. said...

Can we get some comment moderation, Steve?

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