Bruce Springsteen Stumps/Sings for Obama: A Free Six-Song Set

Back in 2008, Bruce Spring­steen threw him­self vig­or­ous­ly behind Barack Oba­ma’s cam­paign. He played small con­certs on Oba­ma’s behalf, and then wrote on his per­son­al web site that Oba­ma “speaks to the Amer­i­ca I’ve envi­sioned in my music for the past 35 years, a gen­er­ous nation with a cit­i­zen­ry will­ing to tack­le nuanced and com­plex prob­lems, a coun­try that’s inter­est­ed in its col­lec­tive des­tiny and in the poten­tial of its gath­ered spir­it.” Fast for­ward four years, Spring­steen is back at it again, though per­haps with a few more reser­va­tions. This sum­mer, he told David Rem­nick, the edi­tor of The New York­er, that he admired Oba­ma “for the health-care bill, for res­cu­ing the auto­mo­bile indus­try, for the with­draw­al from Iraq, for killing Osama bin Laden.” But, on the flip side, he’s “dis­ap­point­ed in the fail­ure to close Guan­tá­namo and to appoint more cham­pi­ons of eco­nom­ic fair­ness, and .… an unseem­ly friend­li­ness toward cor­po­ra­tions.” [This is The New York­er para­phras­ing his con­cerns.] Aloud, he won­dered whether he could go out there again:

I did it twice because things were so dire.… It seemed like if I was ever going to spend what­ev­er small polit­i­cal cap­i­tal I had, that was the moment to do so. But that cap­i­tal dimin­ish­es the more often you do it. While I’m not say­ing nev­er, and I still like to sup­port the Pres­i­dent, you know, it’s some­thing I didn’t do for a long time, and I don’t have plans to be out there every time.

That was in July. But, fast for­ward to Octo­ber and Novem­ber, and we find the Boss stump­ing again for the pres­i­dent in swing states. Spring­steen appeared in Madi­son Wis­con­sin today (below) and Char­lottesville, VA on Octo­ber 23. You can watch the six-song acoustic set above, which fea­tures “We Take Care Of Our Own,” “For­ward, “The Riv­er,” “Promised Land,” “No Sur­ren­der” and “Thun­der Road.”

There’s not much that’s pos­i­tive about this cam­paign. Every day when you turn on the TV, we’re remind­ed of how spe­cial inter­ests have cor­rupt­ed our politic process, all with the bless­ing of the Supreme Court. But if there’s a sil­ver lin­ing to be found — a free set by the Boss — we’ll take it. Go out and vote tomor­row, no mat­ter which can­di­date you sup­port. And we’ll see you on the oth­er side.