Bruce Springsteen’s new protest song isn’t open to interpretation.
In Streets of Minneapolis, the Boss condemns “King Trump’s private army from the DHS” that “came to Minneapolis to enforce the law – or so their story goes”. He names Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both killed by federal agents amid protests. He rages against “Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”, referencing the faces of the Trump administration’s onslaught against immigrants.
In its familiar structure, with chords any beginner musician can play, it echoes protest songs of the 1960s. But unlike Blowin’ in the Wind or A Change Is Gonna Come, it doesn’t speak in metaphor. That probably means no one will be singing this song around the campfire 50 years from now; we can only hope the youth of tomorrow will be unfamiliar with private DHS armies. But it also leaves no doubt about its message. Springsteen, who says he wrote and recorded the song in the span of a weekend, has no time for ambiguity, and the result is a sense of urgency and genuine fury. Streets of Minneapolis sacrifices timelessness for raw feeling.
That’s not to say the song lacks lyricism. Springsteen stages the scene on Minneapolis streets as a battle between the people and their violent oppressors, with images of “fire and ice” and “an occupier’s boots”. It’s rooted in the folk tradition, with references to the US national anthem – “Against smoke and rubber bullets / In the dawn’s early light” – and echoes of the Bible – “We’ll take our stand for this land / And the stranger in our midst.” The title itself harkens back to Springsteen’s own hit Streets of Philadelphia, which addressed the Aids crisis. And, importantly for a protest song, it’s highly singable, with a verse-chorus structure and a built-in chant: the recording features voices yelling: “ICE out!” (It also has a big harmonica solo, essential to any 60s-style anthem.)
And despite the song’s tale of blood and tyranny, it’s unexpectedly hopeful. It celebrates the protests and the city’s unity – “In chants of ‘ICE out now’ / Our city’s heart and soul persists / Through broken glass and bloody tears / On the streets of Minneapolis.” And it situates the crisis as a historical event – “in the winter of ’26” – using another folk-song trope, perhaps as an unconscious reminder that we’ve faced tragedy before and emerged from it.
Yes, it’s all a little on-the-nose. In an era when being cringe is the ultimate sin, it’s tough to write an earnest protest song, and Streets of Minneapolis is very, very earnest. But it works because it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Sixty years after the 60s, music hasn’t forgotten politics. Recent decades have seen their share of protest songs targeting inequality, police violence and Donald Trump himself, by artists ranging from HER to Green Day to the Linda Lindas. Springsteen himself has remained politically outspoken, condemning Trump in a series of onstage speeches last year and prompting the president to declare him a “dried-up prune of a rocker”. (Trump is older than the dried-up prune.) But with every day bringing a new travesty and cruelty becoming normalized, the time is ripe for a renaissance in protest music.
The musician and activist Billy Bragg has already written a song, City of Heroes, celebrating the resistance in Minneapolis. “They use teargas and pepper spray against our whistles and our phones / But in this city of heroes, we will protect our own,” he sings, adapting Martin Niemöller’s “First they came for the socialists” as he laments how so many stay quiet in the face of brutality. Like Springsteen, Bragg wrote and recorded the song in a matter of hours. Who’s up next?
