Songlights: Urgent Springsteen. Fierce new tracks from Little Simz and Kae Tempest. The return of Wednesday. And a night with Allison Russell.
This week, a lot of new music plays as desperate appeals for conscience, for action, for justice as it seems the last pillars of American democracy are being smashed by hate-driven fascists.
I’m reaching for my headphones — for new music by Bruce Springsteen, Kae Tempest, Little Simz and more — the way I would reach for an oxygen mask in a plane that is being crashed by terrorists.
The cockpit has been commandeered by the criminally insane—or at least the criminally hell-bent on cruelty. I used to laugh off maniacal comic-book supervillains as ludicrous and dehumanizing fantasies; I don’t anymore, because now we have a gallery of the most ignorant, cruel, hateful Americans I’ve ever seen sabotaging all levels of government. They’ve thrown the Constitution out the window like madmen deciding they don’t need any guidance on how to fly a plane, dooming us and, in the long run, themselves. We’re living on a prayer now in ways Bon Jovi never imagined. I’ve abandoned Facebook, Instagram, and many other platforms just to shield myself from the debilitating effects of their psychological abuse, which they aim at conscientious and neighbor-loving Americans in order to kill our spirits.
Meanwhile, I have a job to do. We have one more week of standard classes at Seattle Pacific, with a tidal wave of student writing arriving on my desk for close attention and time-sensitive commentary this week. In the middle of all of this, my book deadline looms one week from now, and I am still first-drafting new pages for it, with a ton of revision to accomplish by next Sunday. Then, it’s Finals Week. And right after that, my father’s memorial service.
So, again… thank you for your patience as I hold on for dear life until this round of the academic year rollercoaster ends. I have so much I want to write, so much I want to share with you. That will become so much easier once Commencement 2025 is in the rearview mirror. And then, well… who knows how much time free expression like this has left before you and I get shut down for being “disloyal” to a madman? Who knows how long universities have left before they’re forced to replace actual education with propaganda and cult indoctrination?
Today, I’m writing about films that give us examples of something richer, something deeper, something more profound than the treacle that typically passes for “true love” at the movies. In fact, I’m writing about the films in which Anne and I have seen reflections of what we strive for; what we have, at our best, enjoyed; what we believe counts as True Love. If I’m writing about this in the right spirit, I will end up with an essay characterized by joy and gratitude. It’s hard to find feelings like those right now. But here we go.
As I settle in to write, I offer you these links to some of the songs that have done my heart some good this week, that have cranked up my adrenaline when I was collapsing, that revive my spirits as they come from artists who live in the danger zones of this hateful, violence nation. Take inspiration from them. I do.
Pray for the starving in Gaza. Pray for the hundreds of thousands of people, so many of them children, dying for lack of the aid they’ve lost in this takeover of our democracy. Pray for all Americans who are not white and not rich. Pray for all in the LGBTQIA+ communities. And pray for an awakening of conscience and sanity in those who accelerating the end of American democracy. Pray that our long-promised dream of “liberty and justice for all” might still have a chance in this world, if not this nation.
An urgent appeal from Bruce Springsteen
Listen to this. Springsteen is putting his life on the line to speak the truth. Believe him. Pray with him. Strengthen the things that remain.
The Orange Antichrist in the White House attacked him for this, of course, posting a public threat about what will happen to him when he’s back on U.S. soil. That’s where we are now. There is no free speech anymore if that speech is not flattering the crook in the Oval Office.
For more, here’s today’s New York Times report on the matter, which strikes me as entirely too respectful of President Pumpkinseed:
Since the 1980s Bruce Springsteen has been writing songs that emphasized, even romanticized, a polyglot vision of America and what it means to be an American. That vision is, broadly speaking, an updated version of New Deal America: one that recognizes not only the dignity and pride of honest labor but also the importance of respecting our differences, whether they are based on culture, gender, ethnicity or race. It’s a vision of unity summed up in the phrase that in past concert tours Mr. Springsteen has used to close out the show: “Nobody wins unless everybody wins.” And when Mr. Springsteen says “everybody,” he means everybody — including undocumented migrants and border patrol agents, unwed mothers, distant and irresponsible fathers, Black victims of police brutality and the cops who (regret) shooting them, emotionally scarred Vietnam vets and Southeast Asian war refugees trying to make America their new home.
The 1980s also saw the rise of an alternative vision of America: one that sought to tear down what was left of the New Deal. Its exemplar was Donald Trump, then a tacky developer and a tabloid fixture. It was based on the idea that could be summarized as: I win only if everybody else loses. Today Mr. Trump is president, and full of petty rage at Mr. Springsteen for daring to criticize him at the opening show on his current European tour.
Nothing irks Mr. Trump quite as much as the disrespect of a fellow celebrity. But it’s more than that. Mr. Springsteen, 75, and Mr. Trump, 78, are in many respects two opposing faces of modern America as it was built and performed by their generation. They offer their fan bases a promise of entirely different futures.
Call me petty, but I prefer the Springsteen vision. It sounds to me like the Gospel. It sounds to me like “liberty and justice for all,” not “the worship of a false god, and the installment of white supremacy to the rapid decline of the whole earth.”
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Little Simz unleashes a “Flood”
As I walk this wicked ground
Keep me away from the devil’s palm….
It’s Wednesday again…
Karly Hartzman and company won my heart in 2023, their album Rat Saw God becoming my runner-up for Favorite Album of the Year.
While MJ Lenderman has moved on into a promising solo career, I’m grateful he hung around long enough to play with them on their upcoming album. Here’s the first glimpse of it.
Kae Tempest preaches a gospel of grace and embrace
You are not the sum of the things you do wrong
In the eyes of someone who does not understand you
It's not a disorder or a dysfunction
Disgusting the way they discuss us
But just 'cause a person's not decent to me
Don't mean they're not decent to someone
The norm is not normal: it's a construction
Designed to stifle the inner life and increase production
An evening of joy and inspiration with Allison Russell and Kara Jackson
If you were there, you know what I mean. It felt like a miracle, getting away with such a genuine, heartening celebration of love, mercy, healing, and hope. It felt like a vacation in the kingdom of heaven.
Hard to believe that we were with her at the Tractor Tavern less than a year ago…