The Boss has landed a powerful gut punch to Donald Trump’s murderous Minnesota “ICE Follies,” now set to close its malignant run across the state.
“The Streets of Minneapolis,” a single released January 28, slams Donald Trump, along with Stephen Miller and Kristy Noem, for their deceitful, death-dealing roles as “leaders” in the Department of Homeland Security.
Railing against “King Trump,” the Boss excoriates the president’s “private army,” which jackboots its way through Minnesota’s streets, leaving
bloody footprints where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Echoing his haunting, Oscar-winning “Streets of Philadelphia” (1994), which lamented the plight of AIDS victims dying alone and disdained, Springsteen shows once again he is the undisputed bard of the decline of the American Empire.
In the spirit of Neil Young’s musical face-slap to US President Richard Nixon in “Ohio,” recorded and released shortly after the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings of four students by National Guard troops, the Boss names the victims and architects of the recent murders in the Twin Cities:
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on his face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots and Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead
Their claim was self-defense, sir, just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.
Springsteen’s latest release is true to his prophetic form.
His 2000 single, American Skin (41 Shots), was a plaintive but stinging rebuke of four New York police officers firing 41 shots at 23-year-old Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man reaching for his wallet in February 1999. Nineteen of those shots hit their mark, instantly killing an innocent man of colour. The Boss quietly raged against a culture where you can be killed “just for living in your American skin.”
Springsteen’s latest single is characteristically imbued with both resistance and remembrance:
We’ll take our stand for this land and the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis.
From the “Streets of Minneapolis” to the far corners of his homeland, Springsteen remains the musical, moral voice of a 250-year-old democracy under siege.
When wondering what makes America “great,” let us hope that those living in the “land of the free” might lend a fuller ear to The Boss than to the current occupant of the White House.