{"id":737142,"date":"2026-06-15T01:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T01:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737142\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T01:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T01:50:18","slug":"bruce-springsteen-sings-people-have-the-power-with-bono-patti-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/737142\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen Sings ‘People Have the Power’ With Bono, Patti Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen Bono<\/a> walked onstage at New York\u2019s BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center on June 13 to present Bruce Springsteen<\/a> with the Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award, he began his speech by winding the clock back to 1975. He was 15 then.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was off to being very good at being no good, but then that August, Bruce Springsteen released Born to Run, and part of me stopped running,\u201d said Bono, who\u2019d been introduced by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro<\/a>. \u201cIn November, Patti Smith<\/a> put out Horses. Wow. The next February, I witnessed Robert De Niro play Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. This blows my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSpringsteen first entered U2\u2019s orbit when he joined them to play \u201cStand By Me\u201d at a Philadelphia stop on the Joshua Tree tour in 1987. It was the start of a close friendship that saw Bono induct Springsteen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999,<\/a> Bruce return the favor in 2005<\/a>, many appearances at each other\u2019s concerts, and now this presentation in front of a packed house at the Tribeca Film Festival<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAmerican music let freedom ring to people in Europe and Africa and Asia,\u201d Bono said. \u201cRay Charles was America, Johnny Cash was America, Aretha Franklin was America, Harry Belafonte was America. Bruce Springsteen is America. Bruce made poetry from the voices of the people, and set that poetry to music. We honor him tonight as musician and poet, and as an activist, and a patriot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe went on to explain that Bruce never went down the path of figures like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon by taking an acting role in a movie. \u201cWe honor him as a songster who\u2019s also been making cinema this whole time,\u201d he said. \u201cStick with me. \u2018Screen door slams\/Mary\u2019s dress sways,\u2019 \u2018Men walking along the railroad tracks\/Going someplace and there\u2019s no going back\/Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge\/Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge,\u2019 establishing shots. \u2018I saw her standing on her front lawn, just a twirlin\u2019 her baton\/Me and her went for a ride, sir\/And ten innocent people died.\u2019 It\u2019s the opening of Nebraska, but it\u2019s Terrence Malick. <\/a>A most cinematic figure.’\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n\tThis most cinematic figure took the stage to screams of \u201cBruuuuce,\u201d and sat down next to Bono for a brief conversation that touched on the legacy of Harry Belafonte, the lessons they learned from each other, and the tense political situation in America. Early on, Bono asked him how the country might find a way to come together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s certainly one of the most divisive times that I\u2019ve lived through since 1968 or the late Sixties,\u201d Springsteen said. \u201cAmerica, as I said, when I was on the road, is a sacred argument. It\u2019s not that people are supposed to be in agreement with each other all the time in the first place. It was born in disagreement. It\u2019s a blessed, sacred argument that you\u2019re supposed to be having every day with your fellow citizens and with your representatives. That\u2019s just a part of the country that\u2019s embedded in the country itself. The key to that is you have that argument while recognizing each other\u2019s common humanity, and dignity, and that\u2019s that is in short supply at the moment, from obviously the top of our administration on down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tLater on, Bono recalled his effort, as part of his (RED) campaign, to coax Springsteen into placing his 2007 song \u201cGirls in Their Summer Clothes\u201d in a Gap commercial. Springsteen turned him down, but he regrets it today. \u201cThat was a big mistake,\u201d Springsteen said. \u201cI should have said yes. You have these songs that became your own personal favorites, but the audience doesn\u2019t care if they hear them that much or not. That\u2019s one of them. I love that song. Damit, I still think back, \u2018Bono asked me if I should put that in a commercial on television. I should have fuckin\u2019 done it. People would hear it like a hit.\u2019 I have to apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tWhen they were done speaking, Patti Smith came out with her longtime band member Tony Shanahan. \u201cTony and I would like to congratulate Bruce,\u201d she said. \u201cAlso, send a salute to the Tribeca Film Festival, and to the legacy of Harry Belafonte. The most heartbreaking toll that war, disease, greed, and bigotry, all of these things, the greatest toll comes to the children. We would like to offer this song, dedicate it to the children globally. And maybe their suffering will be transformed into some kind of joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAs Bono and Springsteen looked on from the side of the stage, they played Smith\u2019s 2004 song \u201cPeaceable Kingdom.\u201d Many in the audience expected to hear \u201cBecause the Night\u201d next since Springsteen wrote most of the song in 1977, Patti Smith finished it, she turned it into a hit in 1978, they\u2019ve played it together many times over the years, and Bono has also sang it with Springsteen. But they went instead for \u201cPeople Have the Power.\u201d Bono was initially offstage, and seemingly had no plans to join them, but Smith \u201csummoned\u201d him back out. It didn\u2019t take long for a technician to scramble out and place a mic in his palm.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show ended with Springsteen alone on stage with an acoustic guitar. \u201cI\u2019m going to sing this for the lovely Pam Belafonte,\u201d he said, \u201cand my lovely wife.\u201d What followed was a slow, tender rendition of \u201cLand of Hope and Dreams.\u201d Springsteen wrote the song during a much more peaceful period of world history back in 1999, but it\u2019s become an anthem of optimism and inspiration throughout the tumult of the 21st century. It was the perfect way to wrap up.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Bono walked onstage at New York\u2019s BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center on June 13 to present Bruce…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,48781,42076,134,136,151333,30815,173185],"class_list":["post-737142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bono","tag-bruce-springsteen","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-patti-smith","tag-robert-de-niro","tag-tribeca-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}