There really was no other way to begin Volume 5 of Bruce Springsteen: From His Home to Yours than with “American Skin (41 Shots).” In the midst of agonizing unrest in the U.S., Springsteen used his current platform to speak at length to what’s going on in our country right now, starting with his elegiac protest song.
“American Skin” was written 20 years ago, but it’s never felt as painfully urgent as today.
Eight minutes. That song is almost eight minutes long. And that’s how long it took George Floyd to die, with a Minneapolis officer’s knee buried into his neck. That’s a long time. That’s how long he begged for help and said he couldn’t breathe; the arresting officer’s response was nothing but silence and weight. Then, he had no pulse. And still it went on.
That goes out to Seattle, to New York, to Miami, to Atlanta, to Chicago, to Dallas, to Philadelphia, to Washington, to Los Angeles, to Asbury Park, to Minneapolis, and to the memory of George Floyd. May he rest in peace.
As we speak, 40 million people are unemployed. 100,000-plus citzens have died from COVID-19, with only the most tepid and unfeeling response from our White House. As of today, our black citizens continue to be killed unnecessarily by our police on the streets of America. And as of this broadcast, the country was on fire and in chaos.
The attendant fear and anger and outrage boil over in his own “Murder Incorporated” and Childish Gambino’s “This Is America,” showing the Boss more than ready to meet this moment head-on. Radio doesn’t get much more powerful than this. Five songs with “America” in the title, two with “Murder,” and the vast, echoing distance between American promise and American reality reverberates throughout the entire set.
When the politics of paranoia, division, prejudice, intolerance, fear — all that’s anthetical to the American idea — hold court in the land, we are in deep trouble, my fellow citizens.
To borrow a line from “The House I Live In,” Volume 5 (like so much of Springsteen’s work) centers on this question: “What is America to me?”
While previous episodes have provided a glimpse into Springsteen’s world in quarantine, there was no time today for a slice of life from the farm. It was an extended meditation on what’s going on outside, where the streets are on fire and the death waltz is frighteningly real.
Now, almost 60 years [after the Civil Rights movement], we wake again to an America with burned-out buildings, torched police cars, and shattered shop windows. A cost that we’re paying for another half of a century of unresolved, fundamental issues of race. We have not cared for our house very well. There can be no standing peace without the justice owed to every American, regardless of their race, color, or creed. The events of this week have once again proven that out.
This was not a show for any Shut Up and Sing (or Shut Up and Spin) proponents. As Bob Dylan says, “We live in a political world.”
Five episodes in, Dylan has been represented in each and every one, this time with three songs. Bruce himself sang on five tracks in the set. Cueing up his most recent collaboration with Joe Grushecky, Springsteen noted: “There are 153 days to our next election. God help us; vote. That’s what makes us great.” The Grushecky/Springsteen co-write “Idiot’s Delight” followed in a previously unheard version in which Bruce fronts the band alone: “a track from our vault, written by Joe and I, and debuted here for the first time” — the first time the DJ has premiered one of his own recordings on this show.
That no prior episode has relied more on Springsteen’s music is a reminder that few artists speak so consistently to a moment like this. But From His Home Volume 5 also makes a lot of room for black voices: from Billie Holiday and “the magnificent baritone” of Paul Robeson, to Martin Luther King Jr., to Bob Marley, Kanye West, Childish Gambino, Frank Ocean, and more. And, lest we forget, Tom Morello and the E Street Band.
From Lady Day, “Strange Fruit”:
…one of the darkest songs in the American canon. The video of the death of George Floyd is a 21st century visual lynching. And “Strange Fruit” was written on the lynchings of black Americans that took place after the Reconstruction and into the 20th century. It was recorded in 1939 by Ms. Holiday, and written by Abel Meeropol in 1937. It’s just an incredible work….
We remain haunted, generation after generation, by our original sin of slavery. It remains the great unresolved issue of American society. The weight of its baggage gets heavier with each passing generation, and as of this violent, chaotic week on the streets of America, there is no end in sight.
History lessons abound, touching not only on the legacy of slavery and lynching, but McCarthyism, the ’60s Civil Rights movement, and the story of 1930’s “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.”
From a 1963 speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Springsteen selected words of encouragement: “In spite of the difficulties… and we’re going to have a few more difficulties… keep climbing! Keep moving — if you can’t fly, run! If you can’t run, walk! If you can’t walk, crawl! But by all means, keep moving.”
The Reverend’s words remind us to “keep the movement moving.” To that end, Springsteen yesterday recommended a list of “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” — “something useful if you are looking to be active during these times.” And today he reflected further on the forward movement required as history repeats.
We need systemic changes in our law enforcement departments, and in the political will of our national citizenry, to once again move forward the kind of changes that will bring the ideals of the Civil Rights movement once again to life and into this moment.
A hallmark of From His Home to Yours has been a connecting of dots, as Springsteen lines up some edifying two-fers and three-fers each time. He points out that Abel Meeropol wrote the lyrics for both “Strange Fruit” and “The House I Live In.” In a fascinating trio, we see a biblical story of oppression and deliverance through three different lenses, as “Go Down Moses” (Paul Robeson) and “Get Down Moses” (Joe Strummer) surround Bruce’s own “Heaven’s Wall.”
But if gospel is where Bruce often turns for hope, this time you’ve really gotta wait until “People Have the Power,” from “the beautiful and powerful poet and rocker, and my sweet friend” Patti Smith. “The people have the power to redeem the work of fools” is as an inspiring lyric as there is. But followed by the full 17 minutes of Dylan’s “Murder Most Foul” (“timely and epic”), we get a plaintive reminder that we’ve always had a long walk home, and it’s rarely seemed longer.
We have a choice, between chaos or community. A spiritual, moral, and democratic awakening, or becoming a nation fallen to history, with critical issues we refuse to or couldn’t address. Is our American system flexible enough to make — without violence — the humane, fundamental changes necessary for a just society? The American story, our story, is in our hands. And may God bless us all.
Stay safe. Stay well, stay strong, until we meet again, stay involved. And… go in peace.
By turns harrowing and inspiring, certainly an unflinching look at our current crisis, Volume 5 again affirms From His Home to Yours as essential listening for these troubled times. Visit the SiriusXM blog for the schedule of repeat broadcasts for the week to come on E Street Radio.
Playlist:
- Bruce Springsteen – “American Skin (41 Shots)” (from High Hopes)
- Bruce Springsteen – “Murder Incorporated” (from Live in New York City)
- Childish Gambino – “This Is America”
- Joe Grushecky & Bruce Springsteen – “That’s What Makes Us Great”
- Joe Grushecky & Bruce Springsteen – “Idiot’s Delight” (Vault Version premiere)
- Bob Dylan – “Political World”
- Bob Marley & the Wailers – “Burnin’ and Lootin'” (live at the Roxy)
- Martin Luther King Jr. – “Keep Moving,” Birmingham 1963
- Kanye West – “Who Will Survive in America”
- Kanye West & Jay-Z (with Frank Ocean) – “Made in America”
- Paul Robeson – “Go Down Moses”
- Bruce Springsteen – “Heaven’s Wall”
- Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – “Get Down Moses”
- Thea Gilmore – “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?”
- Bob Dylan – “Blind Willie McTell”
- Billie Holiday – “Strange Fruit”
- Nappy Roots – “Work in Progress”
- Paul Robeson – “The House I Live In”
- Patti Smith – “People Have the Power”
- Bob Dylan – “Murder Most Foul”
- United States Army Field Band Soldier’s Chorus – “America, My Country Tis of Thee”
- Gram Parsons – “In My Hour of Darkness”
Christopher Phillips reporting for backstreets.com
Re-printed with kind permission.
