New Springsteen - "Streets of Minneapolis"

I posted it in January Tunes earlier but it deserves cross exposure 

The Boss steppin' up..... and setting an example

He's "Born to Run"

What fishcane said, and here's the lyrics from the other thread.

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

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

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight

In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
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
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

I kind of expected this to be popping up everywhere on my instagram account today

Really strange it is not there, suppression 

It's all over Facebook, starting yesterday.

Nice try I suppose but good lord is that a terrible song. Musically tepid. Who wrote the lyrics, ChatGPT?

Glad it's out there but It could use a guitar solo.

Maybe it's just me but the best protest songs are ones that are provocative and thought provoking in some type of parallel fashion. Don't tell people what to think. Give them something to think about.

On the positive side this is better than that time Bruce spent a couple of minutes preaching how Americans need to meet in middle, as a branded entertainment springboard for Jeep's 80th anniversary sale. Hey man show some empathy and while you're at it, buy one of these crappy cars!

Another song

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUBoxWjiSQb/?igsh=b3Eydm9xaWQ4dmZ3

For the most part, the lyrics come from a distant eye-in-the-sky viewpoint, and don't focus much on Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and that's where Springsteen's lyrics fall short, imo. We don't get a strong sense of who Pretty and Good were, of their stories, and that means we don't get much of a chance to connect with them in the song, or get a sense of what's been lost.

While thinking about this, Dylan's songs "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" and "Hurricane" came to mind as examples of protest songs that tell a story, and that's what makes them so memorable for me.

It's good to see Neil and Bruce put stuff out into the world.   I'd like to see the next gen - which is probably 3rd 4th gen at this point, get engaged. 

https://youtu.be/VEVk4I_htWE?si=sue6o0xnXnSv21Sf

Heard Bruce's new song on the speakers at the bank yesterday like it was no big thing. It's getting around I guess. Or Muzak's got some subversive radicals doing the playlists...

I love the comment on aiq's post ~ revolutionary folk music

>>> Jesse Welles has been doing some good things.

Everybody pales compared to Jesse. He's so prolific, pointed, and creative. Looking forward to seeing him in 26. If he wins a Grammy, I sure hope he gets a whole new level of coverage, we need it. 

New, fresh, and younger voices are what's needed. The more the merrier. Every artist should put out a protest song, art, poetry, or whatever form they express in. 

Love that the "old reliables" are stepping up, but in a sense, they are on repeat. Not without good reason, stay the course of course.

Saw this posted today.  Sums things up nicely...

The Men With the Badges Came First

I didn’t think much of it at first. That’s the part I still replay in my head.

The language came before the uniforms. It always does.

“Caravans.”
“Invasions.”
“Fraud.”

Words spoken like weather, as if they were facts you couldn’t argue with, only brace against.

Back then, it was just noise on a screen. Trump at a podium. A finger stabbing the air. Immigration as a contagion. America as a body under siege. I told myself it was bluster. Theater. A man who didn’t know how government actually worked.

I was wrong about that last part.

He understood government the way arsonists understand buildings, not how they’re designed, but where they burn fastest.

In the beginning, there were no mass raids. No armored convoys. Just warnings.

Rumors traveled faster than agents ever could. People stopped showing up to clinics. Kids missed school. Churches canceled food drives. Nobody knew what was legal anymore, and that uncertainty did the work for him.

When journalists asked where the new enforcement powers were coming from, officials smiled and said, existing authority. When advocates protested, the response was always the same: If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.

That sentence should be engraved on the tombstone of every democracy that believed it.

Then came the bill and the funding.

It wasn’t sold as a weapon. It was sold as efficiency. Border “security.” Fraud “prevention.” Sovereignty “restoration.” Big words wrapped around bigger numbers. Budgets so large they stopped feeling real.

ICE and CBP became the most generously funded domestic enforcement apparatus in modern American history, and almost nobody could explain exactly what all that money was for.

Hiring surged. Training shortened. Oversight committees got binders instead of answers. Every year the line item grew, and every year the mission expanded to justify it.

Immigration, yes. But also fraud. Gangs. Extremism. National security. Elections-adjacent “integrity.”

A force that size can’t stay in one lane. It needs roads.

The people who joined weren’t monsters. That’s another mistake we make.

Some were veterans looking for structure. Some were true believers. Some just wanted a job that paid well and promised authority. But the tone from the top was unmistakable: aggression was rewarded, restraint was suspect, and hesitation was weakness.

Badges multiplied. Masks appeared. Names disappeared. They claimed it was for safety. Don’t they always?

When ICE showed up in cities far from the border, it was framed as assistance. Support. Coordination. A surge, temporary and necessary.

Atlanta. Portland. Now, Minneapolis.

Places where the president had complained about fraud, disloyalty, corruption, “lawlessness.”

Coincidence?

Local officials asked for explanations and were told investigations were ongoing. Courts asked for warrants and got sealed affidavits. Communities asked why and were told not to interfere with federal business.

That word “interfere” started showing up everywhere.

The first killing was called an accident.
The second, a tragedy. By the third, the language had hardened.

“Officer-involved.”
“Under review.”
“Bodycam malfunction.”

Internal reports were delayed. Names were withheld. Prepared unified statements came faster than facts. The message was subtle but unmistakable: this was not a moment for questions.

People protested, and enforcement appeared again, this time to “protect public safety.”

When ICE showed up in Italy ahead of the Olympics, I remember thinking: Why them?

The explanation was always the same. Not immigration enforcement. Just security. Just intelligence. Just support.

But symbols matter.

When a country sends the same agency it uses to terrorize its own immigrant communities to represent it on the world stage, that’s not an accident. That’s a signal, to allies and critics alike, about what kind of power it values.

By the time the midterms approached, the groundwork was already laid.

Not through laws, but through atmosphere and perception.

Nonprofits hesitated. Voters asked whether showing up might put them on a list. Poll workers wondered whether “federal observers” would be present. Organizers received notices about audits and investigations timed just close enough to matter.

No ballots were seized. No elections canceled. Nothing that dramatic.

Just enough pressure to bend behavior. Just enough ambiguity to sap confidence. Just enough enforcement to remind people that someone was watching and that the rules were flexible, ambiguous.

That’s how modern democracies are unmade. Not with coups, but with compliance.

The election hasn’t happened yet.

The lines are being drawn. The justifications are already written. The force is funded, staffed, normalized, and waiting for orders it can plausibly deny were political.

I don’t know how this ends.

But I do know only this: by the time people agree on what to call what’s happening, it’s usually already too late to stop it.

And the men with the badges?

They’re already in place.

— To be continued.

Arm yourself while you can.

That's right hippie.

Agreed.

So it sure got quiet on that front. Did the good people of Minnesota win? The rest of us owe them a debt of gratitude.