THE BEST SONG OF THE YEAR

THE BEST SONG OF THE YEAR

I have been hearing the new Bruce Springsteen song Devils & Dust on the Seattle radio station to which I listen, KMTT.

I first heard Bruce Springsteen in the late summer of 1975, which is probably when most folks did. Yes, he'd released Greetings From Asbury Park and The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (one of my favorite album titles ever, by the way), but Born To Run burst through the radio play of the day like a cruise missile through wax paper. Springsteen appeared on the cover of both Time and Newsweek simultaneously. I just got very tired of it and the legions of my George Washington University compatriots drooling over the Catholic boy from New Jersey with the Jewish name and the album cover that made him look Middle Eastern.

That was my freshman year. Then he took most of the rest of my time at college to come up with his followup album, and while everyone around me went nuts, I couldn't have cared less. But Springsteen's newest single (are they still called singles?) has captured me like no song of his ever has. Listen to it when you can. Download it from places to download it from, read the lyrics, and think about it. It's a song that crystallizes the horror and stupidity and futility and incorrectness of what the US is doing in Iraq, even more cogently than Born In The USA did about Vietnam. (Am I the only one amused by how people who don't bother to listen to lyrics believe that's a song about how wonderful the US is?) Anyway, I believe Springsteen has nailed it. If your politics match mine, perhaps you will, too.


Springsteen site here.