<\/p>\n
The first few strums of Bruce Springsteen\u2019s new song make you feel like you\u2019re in for, well, a Bruce Springsteen song\u2014a rollicking sing-along about rough-and-tumble but ultimately hopeful times in some troubled American town. And this song, \u201cStreets of Minneapolis,\u201d is exactly that.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also a response to ICE\u2019s bloody record in Minneapolis. It excoriates, by name, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and \u201cTrump\u2019s federal thugs.\u201d It memorializes Alex Pretti and Renee Good\u2014the Americans killed by federal agents\u2014and the \u201cwhistles and phones\u201d still in use by demonstrators. The song\u2019s considerable power lies in the way it transposes a classic, even hoary, mode of protest rock into the present. Springsteen conveys that we\u2019re living through a time that will be sung about for years to come, and that the future depends a lot on what we do in this moment.<\/p>\n
Springsteen has made many protest songs: the inequality elegy of \u201cThe Ghost of Tom Joad,\u201d the post-9\/11 rallying cry of \u201cThe Rising,\u201d the Vietnam-veteran anthem \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d As a reaction to law-enforcement overreach, \u201cMinneapolis\u201d especially recalls Springsteen\u2019s 2000 song \u201cAmerican Skin (41 Shots),\u201d about the police killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Black man. And across his catalog, Springsteen\u2019s concrete lyricism and drawling vocals channel folk music\u2019s titans of protest, Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Here, those influences are worn proudly, ringing out in a buoyant harmonica solo.<\/p>\n
But the song that \u201cMinneapolis\u201d most evokes is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young\u2019s 1970 touchstone, \u201cOhio,\u201d recorded after the National Guard killed four students during a protest at Kent State University. \u201cTin soldiers and Nixon coming,\u201d sang Neil Young in a scene-setting verse; \u201cKing Trump\u2019s private army from the DHS,\u201d sings Springsteen now. Here we are again, late in a culture war, with a champion of a supposed silent majority breaking norms and pushing polarization. Here we are again as armed agents menace civilians. \u201cOhio\u201d crystallized a moment that had already captured national attention, but it also invited listeners to suss out where they stand. \u201cWhat if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?\u201d Young asked. \u201cHow can you run when you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStreets of Minneapolis\u201d doesn\u2019t bother with questions. Its mission is to rouse in the manner of drinking songs, which its sloping melodies and gang-sung harmonies evoke. Springsteen has sounded bitter before, and mournful, but never this purely angry. His voice slithers and spits, reserving extra phlegm for the names of Donald Trump and his allies. Grace and warmth peek out in strategic moments as well, like the chorus\u2019s oh-so-slowly intoned slant rhymes: the words Minneapolis<\/em>, stranger in our midst<\/em>, and\u2014the poignance of this one took a moment to understand\u201426<\/em>.<\/p>\n Twenty-six<\/em> as in 2026<\/em>: the exotic-sounding name of this new year in a decade that remains baffling more than halfway through. Who expected to be living this far in the future and yet trapped in the same old story? One can trace Minneapolis back not only to Kent State but also to the civil-rights movement, and to the labor riots and fascist takeovers abroad that inspired Guthrie. The details change, but the fundamental shape of the struggle remains stubbornly familiar: On one side, gun-toting agents of the establishment; on the other, advocates for the freedom of the less powerful. The clashes result in deaths that get called \u201csenseless\u201d but take on enduring symbolic weight thanks to songs just like this one.<\/p>\n