Springsteen released a single from his forthcoming
'Wrecking Ball' album (due 6 March) this week that's already got critics pondering its meaning. Randall Roberts in the LA Times labels it '
patriotic'. Jim Farber of the NY Daily News -- who's been hard on Springsteen's work in the past -- calls it a '
tale of American self-reliance'.
Backstreets does its homework and unearths a 2009 Nation article called '
Katrina's Hidden Race War', "... about a white 'militia' shooting at least 11 African-American men' in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed":
Surrounded by a crowd of sunburned white Algiers Point locals at a barbeque held not long after the hurricane, [militia member Wayne Janak] smiles and tells the camera, "It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."
That Bruce Springsteen has initiated such debate over the meaning of a 4-minute rock-and-roll song in our garbage culture of vapid celebrities and corporate-approved infotainment is testament to the man's stature as an artist and his courage to challenge listeners. I've listened to the new song several times and am eager to hear if it's a meaningful outrider on 'Wrecking Ball' or signals a return to Springsteen's past method of delivering a theme across a body of work. I hope it's the latter.
