Bruce Springsteen is a pseudo-socialist. It's easy to espouse liberal belief when you have millions of tax sheltered dollars banked.

Nice rebuttal.

And I was the one accusing you of exaggerations and outrageous hyperbole (ten instruments anyone?), not Ernie.

Credit where it's due and all that.

The cognitive dissonance that Bruce's deeply held (and publicly expressed in his lyrics) leftist viewpoints must cause in you brings me much delight.

Is that wrong?

And entire album of commie covers--and that is NO hyperbole--listen to the songs. Have you picked it up yet? A serious fan of someone like Bruce who Saved Your Life would have the album by now. Perhaps you could post a review.

"Nice rebuttal."

It wasn't a rebuttal. It was a satirical chuckle.

"And I was the one accusing you of exaggerations and outrageous hyperbole (ten instruments anyone?), not Ernie."

Ten instruments is the truth. You don't have to like it, but it's a fact.

"Credit where it's due and all that."

Er...huh?

"The cognitive dissonance that Bruce's deeply held (and publicly expressed in his lyrics) leftist viewpoints must cause in you brings me much delight.

Is that wrong?"

Well, wrong in the sense that it causes me no dissonance at all. What part of that is hard for you to comprehend?

"And entire album of commie covers--and that is NO hyperbole--listen to the songs."

Right, because Stu knows I've NEVER heard a Pete Seeger song before!

" Have you picked it up yet?"

Nah.

" A serious fan of someone like Bruce who Saved Your Life would have the album by now. Perhaps you could post a review."

Notify the media!

And what's with the "saved your life" BS? Were you molested by an overdramatic adolescent or something? Give it a rest.

You know, I like most of Elton John's repertoire. I also loved listening to Liberace play his unique brand of piano.

That doesn't make me a supporter of the gay lobby/lifestyle/movement.

I agree with Mitch. I don't ask for entertainers' views on politics and I don't ask for politicians advice on music.

If the entertainer gets too in my face with their politics, then I can easily not listen to them. Elton doesn't do that (and neither did Liberace)

Case in point: Green Day

I really do like the song "When September Ends". Awesome melody and harmony.

I won't buy the cd, and I don't have the MP3.

Altho maybe I should acquire that MP3 just to piss on the RIAA's shoes.

Who cares what the political bias of a musician is? It's a shame when people are so overwhelmed by party allegiance that they can't just enjoy a simple song by a simple man.
While we're at it...NEVER go see a movie because most of the actors are airhead liberals!!!

The POINT is that his leftist views are on full display IN HIS LYRICS.

I need to restate this again since many do not seem to understand this--his LYRICS (the words in the songs) are what make him a loathable human being and an obvious hater of America.

See this list for evidence:

http://nihlist.blogspot.com/2005/09/top-11-lyrics-that-prove-bruce.html

And Mitch I was referring to the following when I made the "Saved my life" comment about you (these are your words):

http://www.shotinthedark.info/archives/004601.html

Tunnel of Love is (along with Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights) the best "watching in mute horror as your relationship/marriage crumbles) record of all time. Would my life have been a better place had I rejected the music because of the politics? No - indeed, I can't imagine having survived either of those parts of my life without that art available.

Gosh, JB. You got me. I like songs. Notify the media.

And again - for the twentieth time - I don't care if you *can* fish out some quotes. Big deal. Half of them were out of context, and the other half, who cares. As I said before, it doesn't matter, and never will.

I'd be interested in hearing why you think it would cause any cognitive dissonance. Project much?

Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town remain better than 99.9999% of all music of the past 50 years - 99.9999999% if you count music from Nashville of the past 30.

The 3 biggest Springsteen fans I know of -- Mitch, myself and my best friend from high school -- are all GOP. Myself, I was in grade school when my (much!) older brother brought Born To Run home from college, and I was hooked. I was jamming to Bruce when friends were buying KISS. I went through an uber-liberal phase, and went on to become the neo-con I'm proud to be today. My buddy already was a conservative when I introduced him to Springsteen's music in high school (how he made it through Macalester I'll never know). Mitch, who I "know" only through his blog, was liberal when introduced to Bruce and went through a similar conversion to mine.
Look. Bruce is a musician. If we con's spent all our time seeking out and listening to music performed only by conservative musicians we'd have very quiet houses (which sometimes, increasingly as I get older, is a welcome relief!).
Musicians, especially successful ones, live in an incredibly insular world, surrounding only by like minded people. They live in constant risk of becoming the very thing that they thought they were rebelling against in the first place. They have a guilt-fueled need to "give back," to "speak for the underdog." A lot of this is well meaning, but misguided.
We get that. We understand that and accept that going in. That doesn't mean that you can't still love the beat, the melody, the raw energy, the emotion and yes, the rebelliousness of the music.
Now, there are limits. I have cooled on Bruce since the Kerry campaign, only because listening to him reminds me of Kerry, which puts me off my lunch entirely.
There are other limits: I won't buy Pete Seeger music no matter who records it.

I am not a real Springsteen fan, beyond "Darkness", which I think is his best work, but I'll say it again: if Wagner can be performed in Israel, and recognized as a great composer, it doesn't really signify any great betrayal of principles for a non-Democrat, non-socialist, non-communist, or non-anything else, to enjoy the music of Springsteen. To say otherwise is to expand ideology way beyond it's proper scope, which is, ironically exactly what poltical nitwits of Springsteen's stripe do so often. "The Ring" is sublime art, even if the artist was often execrable.

Will, watch out!

Angryclown will tear into you for adding big words like execrable to the word count!

Was Wagner an anti-semite? I was a music major for 3 years in college, but I don't remember my music history classes talking about politics of composers.

Yeah, he made some pretty virulent anti-semitic statements, although some say that it was mostly prompted by a rival Jewish composer, as if that is a mitigating fact. He did have some Jewish friends, but that isn't all that mitigating, either. All in all, I'd say he was a fairly vile anti-semite, but his works gave been performed in Israel, albeit with a lot of controversey.

Springsteen's first album was good, but then he discovered those little bells and put them in evey damn song. Between that and forced exposure to KQRS I've had enough of "The Boss".

In January of 1942 the Japanese invaded the tiny island of Karali in the South Pacific. My Grandfather was a marine stationed on the Island. He was taken prisoner along with the other survivors in his platoon, about twenty men altogether.

Soon after the Japanese invaded the US Navy put the island under blockade. Karali is a coral atoll. It has no local supplies of food or water. The Japanese and their American prisoners were able to get water from passing rainstorms, but food was another matter.
They ate everything they could find. Shellfish, insects, rats, they even scraped slime from the rocks and ate that. They tried to eat the coral but it made their teeth hurt.

Eventually they even ran out of slime. At that point the Japanese officer in command of the island, a Colonel Ishigi, issued a deadly, barbaric order: each day one of the American prisoners would be executed bushido style; his head would be severed from his body with a katana. The Japanese officers would then share the heart and liver and their enlisted men would get what remained.

Less than a week after the executions began the Marines landed and defeated the Japanese force. The Americans were freed, but it was too late to save everyone. The big dumb hillbilly from Arkansas had been executed and devoured by the Japanese, as had the smooth talking grifter, the gruff sargeant, even the wisecracking kid from Brooklyn.

What does this have to do with "The Boss"? My grandfather says that the Japanese commander of the Island, Colonel Ishigi, escaped just before the American invasion and was never found. And this cannibal, this inhuman monster, looked exactly like Bruce Springsteen!

Every time I hear a Springsteen song on the radio it makes my blood boil.

To be fair I've known a lot of WWII Japanese commanders and only a few of them have been cannibals.

Well, I agree with JB-Springsteen is singing Communist songs-he believes in that crap. What does it take to disengage yourself from someone so at odds with your principals? (Or is it "principles"-I think I got that wrong on the recent test...).

Anyway, who cares...we're going to Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler in June! I hope we survive coming out of the Orpheum....

Back in the 50's my uncle Leonard worked for the ACEA -- the American Counter-Espionage Agency. For months he had been tracking a particularly nasty Stalinist. This guy, code named "Pinky", sold our greatest secrets to the Russians. He gave the Greenberg's the blueprints for the H-Bomb, but it didn't stop there. "Pinky" also sold them the plans to our Atomic-powered hang glider and detailed instructions on how to build nixie-tubes. Yeah, the guy was a right bastard.

The field agents worked hard, but not only couldn't they catch "Pinky", they couldn't even find out his true identity. My uncle had been out of field work for years, but he went back into it to catch this guy. He was less than a month away from retirement. He figured he'd nab "Pinky" and after that it was fishing every day and cards three times a week down at the Oddfellow's hall.

Well, he tracked down "Pinky" all right. His partner found Uncle Leonard in a back alley in the bad part of Roseville, barely alive. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. He tried to speak. It was ghastly. With every breath blood and bile oozed from his throat ,the color and consistency of a McDonald's Strawberry shake. My uncle pulled his parner down and spoke one last word before he died.

That word was a name: "Springsteen".

Terry, dude, you're grossing me out.

Colleen, "What does it take to disengage yourself from someone so at odds with your principals?"
A CD of Pete Seeger songs ;) I don't expect odes to Paul Wolfowitz from my rock idols, but I draw the line at bad folk music.

Ironically, in concert Springsteen has the work ethic of a capitalist; he doesn't stop until, after 4+ hours, everyone in the place is exhausted.

I think I read a story about the crowd booing when he started chanting "impeach" at a concert, but Mitch would know better than I.

Chriss: Springsteen's capitalist work ethic is admirable, but it's obnoxious-he speaks out of both sides of his mouth. Plus, if I could play and sing like that I would do so for four hours as well. It's like professional sports-people doing something for huge amounts of money that other people do for fun or a past-time. Coal mining, sitting at a computer terminal 8 hrs, waitressing-now those jobs are a little hard to out your heart into.

"Out of context"

What does that mean exactly when I am taking lyrics HE WROTE and pointing them out?

Would in be IN context if I just highlighted the lyrics in question amongst the rest of them?

The guy is a deeply committed anti-American. Again, it's in the words he writes.

Only a fool or someone deep in denial would think the guy is worthy of listening to.

Springsteen's overrated. He's also burned out. There's a reason his "genius" is cited mostly only from his earliest work. He's done nothing remarkable since other than marry his Jersey sound to the ash heap of Leftist jingoism. Not impressive.

Burned out? The Boss made the greatest recording of the 20th Century. Nebraska.
/sarc off

"Only a fool or someone deep in denial would think the guy is worthy of listening to."

But I'm neither, so your theory is debunked.

I think you can really love a song with no thought at all given to the lyrics. I used to enjoy, and still do, the Metallic cover of "Last Caress / Green Hell". You don't have to listen (or read) too long into it to know the song is pretty despicable. I still like many Metallica songs, though I am not a big fan of the group anymore (too old).

I'm not a big fan of "The Boss" either, but I am not going to use his addled political views to help me judge his music. He has produced some songs I rather like, and he is arrogant fool. No big deal, not rocket science, and lacking in cognitive dissonance.

If you cannot dissociate the polical views of an artist and their art, then I think you are the freak.

"Only a fool or someone deep in denial would think the guy is worthy of listening to."

But I'm neither, so your theory is debunked

Glad you agree.

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