In a polarized country like the United States, the music popular – pop, rock, folk, jazz, country, rap – remains the last common language of Republicans and Democrats. The White House has therefore always been interested in its stars: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, Taylor Swift and others. Before the election of November 5thL’Express tells you, in eight episodes, the story of the unlikely couples formed by the beasts of the music scene and the presidential political animals. Very pop’n’pol duos!
EPISODE 1 – Kennedy and Sinatra: An epic bromance, a shattering breakup
EPISODE 2 – Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon: This crazy interview between the “King” and the president
EPISODE 3 – Jimmy Carter and Bob Dylan, friends for life: “Listening to his records…”
EPISODE 4 – The Surprising Story of the Song That Put Bill Clinton in the White House
EPISODE 5 – George W. Bush made a big casting mistake when he wanted to hire Sting
For as long as Springsteen can remember, they’ve voted Democrat in their house. “My mother once told me that’s our party because we’re working class, period,” the singer once said, who comes from one of those blue-collar families in America of blue-collar workers, truck drivers and union activists, where, no matter what, you stick to the ideas of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Clinton, Biden… Even after selling his song catalog to Sony Music Entertainment for a record $500 million in 2021, the “Boss”—so nicknamed because he paid his E Street Band musicians every weekend, as if they were factory workers—has not renounced his roots.
Eager to stay connected to reality, he still lives in his very unglamorous native New Jersey, considered by Manhattan New Yorkers as a distant redneck suburb. When he meets a fan, he treats him as an equal and tries to behave like a “normal guy” – an attitude that contributes to his popularity. As for his job – rock’n’roll, that is – he approaches it like an old-fashioned worker, proud of the work accomplished, especially after the marathon concerts that have made him legendary.
On November 5, Springsteen will undoubtedly vote for Kamala Harris. He has no words harsh enough for Donald Trump – a “toxic” personality, whose presidency was, according to him, a “fucking nightmare“ (a “fucking nightmare”). For a long time, however, our “guitar hero“has carefully kept himself away from politics. Although he was initially billed as the “new Bob Dylan,” the soon-to-be-75-year-old singer did not fit into the tradition of “protest song“His thing is social reporting.
Beginnings far from politics
After three albums, including the epic Born to Run (1975), or “Born to Run”, which narrates the destinies of magnificent losers cutting the road towards a dream New York City, Springsteen definitively finds his way by becoming the chronicler of the America of the left-behind and the down-and-out. Since then, with the dark Darkness on the Edge of Town released in 1978, he built a narrative work that goes against the mythology of the American dream. Calibrated like three-minute films, his cinematic songs talk about unemployment (The River), of factory life (Factory), construction workers (Working on the Highway), cop story (Highway Patrolman) or offenders convicted by the fierce justice system (Johnny 99). But never politics.
By the end of 1979, however, Springsteen was taking a stand: he took part in No Nukesa series of concerts organized after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania nine months earlier. Five years later, politics, real politics, caught up with him in the midst of his fame – and without his knowledge. Released in June 1984, his seventh album, Born in the USA – whose cover, with an American banner in the background, is the work of Annie Leibovitz – is the subject of a huge misunderstanding.
Campaigning for re-election in New Jersey, Republican Ronald Reagan invoked Bruce Springsteen, the local boy who, he thought, shared his ideas. However, far from being a patriotic anthem, the album’s title song denounced the fate of Vietnam veterans, abandoned by society and often homeless. Three days later, on stage in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), Springsteen felt obliged to publicly distance himself from the candidate whose policies, according to him, were increasing inequality. In the process, he banned that Born in the USA be broadcast at Republican meetings.
From then on, things were clear: Springsteen belonged to the Democratic family. At the time, he was involved in several collective or individual projects: a record against hunger in Africa (We are the World) or apartheid (Sun City), concert against racism for the benefit of Amnesty International, song in solidarity with AIDS patients (Streets of Philadelphia). In 2002 the album was released The Rising devoted to the aftermath of September 11. Then, he committed himself against the re-election of George W. Bush. “Simply a question of common sense!”, he justifies, laughing. In an editorial in the New York Timeshe criticizes the commitment of American soldiers in Iraq. And he takes to the road for a series of concerts in nine swing states in favor of Democrat John Kerry. Bush was nevertheless re-elected. Same thing again in 2008, in support of Barack Obama. This time, his candidate won: in January 2009, Springsteen was among those who sang at the inauguration ceremony of the first black president in the history of the United States.
The improbable bromance with Obama
It was the beginning of a long-term friendship that also relied on wives Patti Scialfa and Michelle Obama. Whenever the schedule allowed, the latter invited the Springsteen couple to the White House for small dinners. You have to imagine the scene: Bruce at the piano, a glass of whiskey within reach, and Barack singing accompanied by Patti and Michelle, the happy band performing songs from Broadway musicals, Motown hits and other classics.
In 2012, Bruce went back on the campaign trail for his buddy. He sang in Columbus, Ohio, Obama’s home state, alongside rapper Jay-Z. An unforgettable experience: “You gave me something I’ve never been able to give myself: the diversity in the audience. I played to white faces and black faces,” the Boss explained to the ex-president in their book (1) of dialogue published three years ago and taken from their original podcast. Renegades: Born in the USA broadcast on Spotify. At the end of “Barack’s” second term, “Bruce” also gave a historic 15-song acoustic concert, this time in front of the 250 members of the presidential staff. And the friendship didn’t stop there. After the Democrat’s term, the Obamas and Springsteens traveled around Polynesia together on a yacht, accompanied by actor Tom Hanks and host Oprah Winfrey.
But what is the reason for this unlikely bromance between a white guy from a small town in New Jersey and a mixed-race black guy born in Hawaii who spent his childhood all over the world? Probably because both see themselves as outsiders whose youth was marked by the absence of their father. Bruce’s father, a factory worker suffering from schizophrenia, has struggled his entire life between odd jobs, unemployment and bouts of depression, without forming a real relationship with his son. As he recounted in My Father’s Dreams (Presses de la cité), Obama, himself, only saw his father once, at the age of 10, when he took him on a trip to his native Kenya for a month.
Both solitary, both eloquent, these peerless storytellers also share a certain idea of America. “What we share is a fundamental belief in the American ideal,” Obama explains in their joint work. “Not as a cheap, reworked fiction, nor as an act of nostalgia that ignores the many times we have fallen short of that ideal, but rather as a compass that points to the work that awaits each of us as citizens to make this country and the world more equitable, more just, and more free.”
Before leaving the White House, Barack Obama presents his elder brother (Springsteen is twelve years older than him) with the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian decoration in the United States. Lucidly, he begins his speech with these words: “I am the president, yes, but the Boss… he is!”
(1) Born in the USABarack Obama and Bruce Springsteen (Fayard).
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