Bruce Springsteen has always shied away from siding with any one political party, preferring instead to champion particular causes close to his heart. As The Dixie Chicks saw when they denounced the current US president, you can turn away a lot of fans if you take an extreme stance (left, right or otherwise). Back in the 80s, Reagan famously misappropriated "Born in the USA" as if it was some celebration of the US, a mistake which frustrated Springsteen no end. Even then he couldn't bring himself to speak explicitly about his political views and merely asked that people pay closer attention to the song. Now as the global political climate looks decidedly wonky Springsteen has made his boldest political statement yet: he's soundly endorsed a recent speech by Al Gore by
reprinting it on his official site. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. In Australia, a similarly respected musician has also wandered into politics in a big way, with Peter Garrett (formerly of Midnight Oil) joining the Labor Party and being offered a safe seat so that he can enter Parliament. Just as with Springsteen, many long time fans are astonished by the bold move into mainstream political debate. It'll be interesting to see how things play out.
Every so often I get someone asking me for my postal address to send me a
CD. I'm not sure whether they're thanking me for something they like about
one of my websites or whether they're expecting me to proclaim nice things
about the album or what. If I was a journalist for some big music mag
maybe I could understand it, but I'm not so I don't. Anyway, I think