Credit: Disney Plus
Sat 19 September 2026 0:00, UK
Bruce Springsteen has always wanted to stand for the same American values that he believed in when he was a kid.
Sure, there were always going to be hardships that came with living in the US, but his main goal was to show people the freedom on the other side of the horizon, whether that’s someone trying not to throw their life away or someone trying to escape the empty dreams that they have living in their hometown. There was always room for people to grow, and it took the right voices to help ‘The Boss’ believe that a sense of change was possible.
After all, change isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s something that’s crafted over time, and Springsteen was willing to do his part to become a better person whenever he worked on any of his tunes. There were many times where he had to own up to his shortcomings on records like Tunnel of Love, but there were also more than a few where he had a righteous anger for the values that had been forgotten, like ‘Born in the USA’.
He could still be a patriot and also be critical of his country, because those were the lessons that Bob Dylan taught him when he was still trying to cut his teeth as a songwriter. Dylan was fearless when it came to everything he said on tunes like ‘Masters of War’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’, but Springsteen also knew that his idol wouldn’t have been anywhere without the folk icons that came before him.
As much as rock and roll had a hold on his heart, Springsteen had a deep respect for the kind of music that Woody Guthrie had made long before rock and roll became a driving force. He was willing to stand up against oppression and knock down any fascist in his way with his guitar, but if Guthrie was a bit more caustic most of the time, Pete Seeger had a bit of a softer touch that Springsteen related to.
Seeger wasn’t claiming to have all the answers every time he sang, but he knew how to celebrate what music could do every time he started plucking away on his banjo. He knew music had the power to heal even the harshest of wounds, and when singing tunes like ‘This Land is Your Land’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’, Springsteen started to see the kind of power that Seeger had over the entire country.
Countless artists have tried to capture the spirit of their times, but ‘The Boss’ felt that what made Seeger special was how he managed to make America a better place, saying, “[He’s] a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends. [He’s a] a stealth dagger through the heart of our country’s illusions about itself.”
Further reading: From The Vault
And in times of social unrest, most people need to be reminded of the kind of values the younger musician learned from Seeger. Many people are quick to be too trusting of those in power, but Springsteen was the one daring to suggest that the emperor didn’t have any clothes on, and if he could see through the façade, he was going to make sure that everyone saw the injustices in America for what they were.
He wasn’t afraid to put himself on the line like Seeger did, because he knew that his relentless optimism was what was going to win out in the end. No one gets anywhere by simply attacking the other side of the political fence, and beyond being a follower of Seeger’s teachings, Springsteen wanted to show the world how great life could be if we simply had tolerance for one another.
