Podcast odd couple Obama, Springsteen
NEW YORK — Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen are teaming up for an eight-episode Spotify podcast series, swapping stories about their upbringings and even a White House singalong around a piano.
The first two episodes of “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a conversation recorded in Springsteen’s guitar-filled home studio in New Jersey, were made available on Monday.
Spotify has moved aggressively in podcasts over the past three years, and made other programming announcements Monday. The audio streaming service has already worked with Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground production company, and the former first lady’s podcast is the service’s most popular original.
The seemingly offbeat relationship between the former president and rock star began when Springsteen performed benefits for Obama during his presidential campaigns. But it has blossomed into deeper conversations since he left office, Obama said in the first episode.
“He’s a rock ’n’ roll icon,” he said. “I’m a lawyer and politician. Not as cool. And as I like to remind Bruce every chance I get, he’s more than a decade older than me.”
The men recalled a White House visit, which included Springsteen playing the piano as Broadway and Motown tunes were sung. “There were libations involved,” Obama said. Springsteen uses a few of those guitars during the course of the podcast. In that first episode, both men recalled feeling like outsiders growing up and turning to their fields as a way of finding their voices, with a little “megalomania” involved. In later episodes, they talk about racism, fatherhood and marriage.
Their wives, Michelle Obama and Patti Scialfa, also bonded, sealing their friendship.
“We still have a fundamental belief in the American ideal,” Obama said. “Not as nostalgia. But as a compass.”
DEAR EDITOR:
Re: “What happened to trusting us?” (Letter to the editor, Feb. 16).
Thank you Pauline and Paul Landry for inviting the opinions of “faithful Daily Courier subscribers” on COVID-19 rules about accessing Canada from foreign lands.
I would expect a lobby on behalf of many thousands of proud British Columbians would not hold much weight against protecting millions of Canadians from COVID and especially the new variants spreading from foreign lands.
If it did, I would more than “question our democracy.”
In Mexico, you may not be aware of the latest rules in Canada and the safety measures that have changed other than hotel quarantine costs. These measures, are adapted per health regulators recommendations to and by our federal and provincial governments.
As pensioners, I expect you are meaning “essential travel home to meet the less than six-month absence for health-care qualifications and principle residence.”
If for some, there is an unbearable expense issue then they should (individually) make a leniency plea. The hotel rule is for all people arriving to Canada from foreign lands and not a snipe on “snowbirds” rights.
It would be hard to believe anyone traveling far without a backup financial plan as it is not just during COVID that travel meets costly obstacles.
So we fellow citizens welcome you back home and trust you will follow the rules for landing from foreign lands plus living on Canadian soil, as they are thoughtfully adjusted for the health and safety of the majority of Canadians within your democratic country.
Tom Read, Kelowna