After a two-hour cinematic exploration of the artist at his most vulnerable, Bruce Springsteen strode onto the stage at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center on Sunday night, and evinced resolve, addressing the challenges he sees in a polarized country living through “dangerous times” amid personal threats from President Trump.
The remarks were a progression in a journey for the artist that began nearly 43 years ago, when the film “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is set. The searing, visceral drama is centered on the production of Mr. Springsteen’s 1982 album “Nebraska” and the musician’s battle with depression.
“I spent my life on the road, moving around as kind of a musical ambassador for America, trying to measure the distance between American reality where we’ve often fallen short of our ideals, and the American dream,” he said following the film’s star-studded screening at the New York Film Festival.
America, he said, “as battered as she feels right now,” continues to be, “a land of hope and dreams, not of fear, or divisiveness, or government censorship, or hatred — that America is worth fighting for.”
Then shouldering what he called, “my lifelong weapon of choice, the guitar,” Mr. Springsteen launched into his keep-the-dream-alive hymn for the country, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which predates the current political moment.
Mr. Springsteen’s onstage remarks hearkened to a message from his European tour earlier this year. The songwriter, who has written so much about the trials and struggles of daily life in America, with all its pitfalls, spoke with increasing alarm during tour stops in May about the political temperature and the authoritarian creep he sees coming from the White House, drawing the ire of Mr. Trump.
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The post Bruce Springsteen Reflects on ‘Dangerous Times’ appeared first on New York Times.
