BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, poet of the blue-collar worker and voice of the crumbling American dream, had planned to stay out of this presidential election.
But these are troubling times.
With the contest locked in a dead heat, the Boss returned to the stage in the battleground state of Ohio to rally support for Barack Obama.
Yesterday, at the sports hall of a college in the city of Parma, he appeared alongside former president Bill Clinton to throw their combined weight behind the president’s election campaign.
“I’m here today for Ohio,” he said to roars of support. “For a long time, I’ve been writing about the distance between the American dream and American reality. I’ve been gauging that difference and it’s driven a big part of my life. I’ve seen it from inside and outside.
“As a blue collar kid in New Jersey, I’ve seen my parents struggle to make ends meet . . . to the ninth ward in New Orleans after Katrina, to the people delivering food parcels. Our vote is the one principal way we get to determine what happens. Voting matters . . . Look at the last 12 years and tell me it don’t.”
The setting for the concert was apt. Parma is a working town which has seen better days and could be the backdrop for any number of Springsteen’s songs of closed factories and struggling workers.
In the 1970s it was one of the fastest growing cities in the US. Its population soared to more than 100,000 as workers flocked to the Ford and Chrysler manufacturing plants.
But, like Springsteen’s songs of redemption and optimism against the odds, the city has held its own.
Obama’s bailout for the car manufacturers helped to save the industry, which is responsible for one in eight jobs in the region.
Yesterday, many of them were among the thousands of mostly middle-aged, casually-dressed fans who queued for hours to get into an event aimed mainly at encouraging wavering voters to get out and vote.
Turnout in this swing state – seen as the bellwether for the rest of the country – will be crucial to victory for both sides.
Bill Clinton, for once, was in a supporting role, as he gave a sweeping, half-hour exposition on why Obama’s policies would move the country forward, and how the president had helped save the car industry.
“There are now 250,000 more people working in the automobile industry than there were the day the automobile plan was signed,” he said, to whoops and cheers. “The president had your back then, now you’ve got to have his back.”
Shortly afterwards, on a stage draped with a giant American and Ohio state flag and Obama’s campaign slogan “forward”, Springsteen appeared with his guitar and some humble words.
“So, I get to speak after President Clinton? It’s like going on after Elvis,” he grinned. “If he had brought his saxophone, then you’d have seen a real jam.”
He launched into No Surrender, a song about growing old, staying true and keeping faith in romantic dreams. He followed it with Youngstown and The Promised Land.
“There was also time for We Take Care of our Own, from Springsteen’s latest album Wrecking Ball, with its message on the power of collective responsibility. In all, he played for almost 45 minutes.
Springsteen’s involvement with politics goes back more than a few years. He made headlines when he rejected Reagan’s attempt to appropriate Born in the USA in the 1980s as his campaign song.
Reagan’s advisors famously misinterpreted the anti-war song as a patriotic endorsement of the country’s superpower status.
Much later, Springsteen unsuccessfully campaigned for Senator John Kerry during his presidential bid in 2004. He came out again, this time to better results, for Obama in 2008.
Until recently, he had said he would stay out of the 2012 election.
Many were sceptical – and rightly so.
His odes to working Americans and the power of redemption chime with many of the Obama campaign’s messages – and with many of the thousands who came out to see him yesterday.
“You know, Springsteen has always been a working man and a supporter of the working man,” said 59-year-old Edwina Horvat. “He came from a working-class family. His views will resonate with lots of voters around here.”
“He’s behind Obama 100 per cent, and so am I,” said Rich Gazso (53), who was wearing a faded Bruce Springsteen hoodie. “He knows the issues, he knows what needs to be done.”
