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Bruce Springsteen was always at least a little bit political. I
remember his anger when
Born
in the U.S.A. was coopted by the Reagan campaign,
demonstrating that neither the Republicans nor those "Reagan
Democrats" had the slightest idea what he was singing about. Or maybe
they just didn't care, more's the pity.
So it isn't that big a leap for Bruce to go back and bring life to the
work of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and other practitioners of folk and
protest songs. And that he certainly does, giving a song of man
vs. the machine like
John
Henry the energy and the defiance the story demands. Not all
folk songs are meant to lull you to sleep, after all. Just most of
'em.
Update 06/20: Suffering from a shortage of irony in your diet? I guess we have the answer to the question in Christine's comment. According to Boing Boing, Springsteen's record label put such extreme DRM on the CD release of this album that it can't be played on a computer or ripped to MP3s. Which would have inspired some great protest songs from the ultraliberal Mr. Seeger, I'm sure. As for us, I guess it's a choice of either buying from the iTMS or stealing the music from one of the P2P sites.
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