Left I on the News

The latest from Bruce Springsteen (to be released next week):

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
...
We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore
We just stack the bodies outside the door
...
The wise men were all fools
What to do

- Bruce Springsteen, "Last to Die"

Update: Bruce, this morning on the Today Show:

This is a song called Livin' In the Future. But it's really about what's happening now. Right now. It's kind of about how the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston... the Bill of Rights [holds up microphone, urging crowd to cheer] ... v-twin motorcycles... Tim Russert's haircut, trans-fats and the Jersey Shore... we love those things the way womenfolk love Matt Lauer.

But over the past six years we've had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of that great city New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution. And the loss of our best men and women in a tragic war.

This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here.

So right now we plan to do something about it, we plan to sing about it. I know it's early [in the day, as he was performing], but it's late. So come and join us.

You can watch and listen (to the speech and the music) here; start with "Living in the Future."

And, aside from the political comments that start the show, few songs have political content and send chills up my spine like "My Hometown."