Can music win the White House?
Bruce Springsteen has hit the road once more in support of Barack Obama. But can rock stars really make much difference in the brutal world of politics? By Dorian Lynskey.
JUST WHEN he thought he was out, they pull him back in. Having told the New Yorker that he was going to sit this election out, Bruce Springsteen decided to saddle up once more in support of President Barack Obama’s re- election bid. His first appearance was alongside Bill Clinton at a rally in Parma, Ohio, on Friday. Like Clinton, whose convention speech thrilled the faithful last month, Springsteen is well- equipped to inject some emotional heat into a somewhat chilly and apologetic Obama campaign.
In this area Springsteen knows failure as well as success. While 2008 was a dream election for the left in the US, Springsteen was also the star attraction on the 2004 Vote for Change tour in aid of John Kerry. Not one of the swing states visited by the tour changed direction as a result and George Bush returned to the White House.
REM’s Peter Buck has recalled talking to Springsteen’s guitarist Steve Van Zandt backstage: ‘‘We both said: ‘Y’know, I’m glad we’re doing this, but it’s not going to do anything. Kerry’s losing’.’’
So you can see why Springsteen hesitated this time. In campaigning for broader issues, you can claim to be nudging public opinion in the right direction, however slowly, but the brutal calculus of elections allows only for winners and losers. It takes courage to risk being numbered among the latter.
Rock music’s first concerted effort to influence an election ended in the most crushing defeat of all. Such marquee names as Carole King, Grateful Dead and Simon and Garfunkel played benefit shows for anti- war liberal George McGovern in 1972 – Neil Young even recorded a single for the candidate, War Song – and the Republican Richard Nixon still won by a historic landslide. The cherished youth vote, expanded by the lowering in 1971 of the voting age from 21 to 18, failed to materialise in McGovern’s favour.
So much for the power of rock music to win hearts and minds, you might think. And yet Nixon had been troubled by John Lennon’s plans to stage an antiincumbent tour (cancelled due to his deportation fight), so somebody was taking it seriously.
Many disconsolate McGovern supporters, including Lennon and Young, steered away from politics for years afterwards.
In Britain, the same happened to Paul Weller, of Style Council, after Margaret Thatcher’s re-election in 1987. Weller had stifled his suspicion of party politics in order to add his star power to the Red Wedge campaign in support of Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party, and his political commitment never recovered from the failure.
Springsteen admitted to the New Yorker: ‘‘[Political] capital diminishes the more often you do it.’’
The principled yet pragmatic Springsteen must know he has a tricky task ahead.
Unseating a president you hate is much more energising than reelecting one who has disappointed you. It’s notable that many of the musicians who were shouting their support for Obama from the rooftops in 2008 will now express approval only if prompted by interviewers. Perhaps the horrific prospect of a Romney-Ryan White House is only just sinking in.
Jay- Z and Beyonce hosted a fundraising party in New York in September for 100 guests who paid $40,000 ($54,000).
Perhaps the most practically useful thing celebrities can do is help fill the war chest.
Springsteen has little chance of stopping white blue- collar men from backing Mitt Romney 2: 1. They are more likely to see the singer as another celebrity liberal than as a fellow son of toil.
But in a polarised country with few undecideds, ballot-box success rests more on getting out the vote than on winning over swing voters.
Maybe Springsteen saw Obama’s low- voltage debate performance and thought the base needed firing up in a hurry.
An inspiring performance might just provide the visceral jolt that propels someone to the polling station on 6 November, but if Obama loses, Springsteen is wise enough and tough enough not to take it personally.
On the billion-dollar stage of a presidential election, even the biggest celebrities must settle for supporting roles.