Springsteen Sings for Hillary, Hits Trump Hard
Bruce Springsteen was a final-day addition to Hillary Clinton’s Monday-night Philadelphia rally. He came with his acoustic guitar, not the E Street Band, and he was in full, socially conscious, descendent-of-Woody-Guthrie mode. He began by singing a version of “Thunder Road” that underscored the song’s expressed desire to break free of limitations to achieve a different kind of personal freedom.
After it, still strumming a few chords as he spoke, he delivered a short speech, asserting that “Hillary’s candidacy is based on intelligence, experience, preparation, and an actual vision in which everyone counts … to address our problems in a reasonable and thoughtful way.” Springsteen hit a couple of Clinton stump-speech points — “immigration reform, universal health care” — and went a bit further, noting that “Hillary sees an America where the issue of income distribution should be at the forefront of our national conversation.”
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Springsteen then turned his attention to Donald Trump, a man, he said, “whose vision is limited to little beyond himself, who has a profound lack of decency that would allow him to prioritize his own interests and ego before American democracy itself … that’s unforgivable. Tomorrow those ideas and that campaign is going down.”
You’d think that would have been a segue into singing “Going Down,” right? But no: He offered what he called “a prayer for the post-election. It’s called ‘Long Walk Home.’” (It’s from his 2006 album Magic.) Springsteen wrapped up with “Dancing in the Dark,” suitable for a nighttime outdoor performance, but not at all the upbeat pop hit his fans know. Instead, the song suddenly revealed a new meaning: That we are all dancing in the dark at this moment, hoping for some new illumination at this moment in our history.
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It may not have been the explosive, rousing, get-out-the-vote that the 20,000-plus audience thronging Independence Hall expected (or indeed what the Clinton campaign had hoped for), but it was a powerful, sincere performance nonetheless.
