While the White House can try to pretend that Bruce Springsteen‘s anti-ICE song, “Streets of Minneapolis” — which denounces the killing of unarmed U.S. citizens, including Renée Good, and federal tyranny — is “irrelevant,” Springsteen, the people of Minneapolis, and U.S. citizens across the country loudly disagree.
On Friday afternoon, a benefit concert organized by Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, billed as “A Concert of Solidarity & Resistance to Defend Minnesota!”, kicked off at Minneapolis’ famed First Avenue club. The show was brought together to raise money for the families of Good and Alex Pretti, who were both fatally shot by ICE agents.
Springsteen appeared onstage as the surprise guest and delivered the first live performance of the protest song to cheers in the crowd. Morello then joined him for a rendition of his “Grapes of Wrath”-themed “The Ghost of Tom Joad.”
Before playing “Streets of Minneapolis,” Springsteen said, “I wrote this song and I recorded it the next day, and I sent it to Tom Morello.” Springsteen said he told Morello, “I think it’s kinda soapboxy,” to which the guitarist replied, “Bruce, nuance is wonderful, but sometimes you have to kick them in the teeth.”
“So this is for the people of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the people of our good country, the United States of America,” said Springsteen before diving into the song. As he sang, “In our chants of ‘ICE out now’/Our city’s heart and soul persists/Through broken glass and bloody tears/On the streets of Minneapolis,” the packed audience raised their fists in the air and shouted: “ICE Out now!”
When announcing the concert earlier this week, Morello wrote in a statement: “If it looks like fascism, sounds like fascism, acts like fascism, dresses like fascism, talks like fascism, kills like fascism and lies like fascism, boys & girls it’s f*cking fascism. It’s here, it’s now, it’s in my city, it’s in your city and it must be resisted, protested, defended against, stood up to, exposed, ousted, overthrown and driven out. By you and by me.
“We are coming to Minneapolis where the people have heroically stood up against ICE, stood up against Trump, stood up against this terrible rising tide of state terror,” he continued. “Where the people have stood up for their neighbors and themselves, for democracy and justice. Ain’t nobody coming to save us except us and it’s now or never.”
