Bruce Springsteen has made it clear his upcoming ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ Tour with the E Street Band in the US will be anything but a simple nostalgia trip.
In a recent interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, the Boss laid out his intentions for the tour, which kicks off in Minneapolis next week.
“The tour is going to be political and very topical about what’s going on in the country,” he said. “The E Street Band is built for hard times. It always was. These are the moments when I think we can be of real value and real worth to the community.”
“I don’t know of another time when the country has been as critically challenged and our basic ideas and values as critically challenged as they are right now,” he explained. “I’d have to go back to 1968 when I was 18 years old to another moment when it felt like the country was so on edge and like it felt there was simply so much at stake as far as who we are and the country we want to be and the people we want to be. It’s a critical, critical moment.
Adding some extra firepower to the tour is Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who will be joining Springsteen for every single date. Morello, a longtime collaborator, apparently gave The Boss some blunt advice while he was writing the protest song “Streets of Minneapolis”.
“I tend to write more nuanced even with my political or topical songs,” Springsteen said. “I never want to sound like I’m on a soapbox. But as Tom said, ‘Nuance is wonderful, and sometimes you have to kick them in the teeth.’ And this was one of those times.”
The track, which debuted at Morello’s anti-ICE protest concert in January, directly addresses the deaths of two American citizens killed by ICE in the city. Unsurprisingly, the White House wasn’t impressed, with a spokesperson dismissing the song, stating the administration is not focused on “random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information.”
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However, Springsteen said he us unbothered by the potential for political blowback. “My job is very simple: I do what I want to do, I say what I want to say, and then people get to say what they want to say about it.… I don’t worry about if you’re going to lose this part of your audience,” he said.
“The blowback is just part of it. I’m ready for all that.”
To double down on his stance, Springsteen has also partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), lending his iconic track ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ to an ad protesting a 2025 executive order signed by Trump that aims to end birthright citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the order’s legitimacy on April 1st.
