Dear Bruce,
No way you'd remember — Akron Civic Center, August 8th, 1975. I found an open door around the side after the show, and me and my girlfriend snuck in and I shook your hand outside the dressing room and thanked you for the best concert I'd ever seen. Forty years later, it still is.
I'm reaching out to you now — I can't remember exactly where I learned to say "reaching out"; I know it was sometime after I moved to North Jersey in 1996 — because every time Chris Christie holds another town-hall meeting, I get to hear you singing "We Take Care Of Our Own" on the PA system. Bothers the hell out of me.
What the fk? Is it possible you're not aware of this? Seriously? Or could it be that you're aware, but somehow okay with it? Either way, I'm asking you to tell Christie to knock it off. Now.
Don't get me wrong: It's your song, not mine. Do whatever you want with it. And if you don't own the rights to it, or if there's some "fair use" doctrine that applies here, god bless. But even if that's so, I'm still left wondering what the fk — not about Chris Christie, but about why you're mum about Christie using your song and your voice as part of his act.
It's not as if you haven't walked this road before. Ronald Reagan was using "Born in the USA" thirty years ago; you asked him to stop. You've campaigned and you've raised money for candidates. You certainly understand the power of music and how that power intersects with politics. You're something of a public citizen, a witness to justice and injustice, a voice for the suffering individual and struggling community.
Which leads me back again to what the fk. Here's a guy who pisses on unions and practices the politics of scarcity when it comes to public funding for anyone or anything unless it increases his power and his rich friends' wealth — and there you are, with him, wed to his message by an anthem you wrote about poor folks abandoned by their government, left behind to look out for each other or die.
What. The. Fk.
Pal, you don't owe me or Chris Christie or any other fan of yours jack shit. But you do owe something — to your legacy, including your own family, and also to the Garden State, your home. Not to mention Woody Guthrie and the ghost of Tom Joad.
Best,
Scott
P.S. No problem if you tell Christie he's free to use "Wrecking Ball" instead.
Original Source: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a27977/open-letter-springsteen/
