Marc Maron posted this picture of him with Bruce Springsteen on his Twitter feed, @WTFpod, today.
In an interview on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast that was posted today on wtfpod.com, Bruce Springsteen discussed his fears of the Trump presidency — which begins on Jan. 20 — but also said he has not been writing songs directly about it.
“We’ve got a good arsenal of material right now, that we can go out and sort of put in service,” he said in the interview, which was taped recently.
What form that “service” will take remains to be seen, of course, but he did also say, in the interview: “America is still America, I believe in its ideals, and I’m going to do my best to play my very, very small part in maintaining those things.”
Here is an excerpt of a small portion of the interview — which lasted more than an hour — during which Springsteen talks about these topics:
Maron: What’s your biggest fear of (the Trump presidency), as we enter it?
Springsteen: I suppose (it) would be that a lot of the worst things, and the worst aspects of what he appealed to, comes to fruition. When you let that genii out of the bottle — bigotry, racism — when you let those things out of the bottle …
Maron: Intolerance.
Springsteen. Yeah, intolerance, they don’t go back in the bottle that easily, if they go back in at all. Whether it’s a rise in hate crimes, people feeling they have license to speak and hate in ways that previously were considered un-American, and are un-American, that’s what he’s appealing to. And so, my fears are that those things find a place in ordinary civil society … and the country changes in a way that is unrecognizable, and we become estranged … as you say … you say, ‘Hey, well, wait a minute, you voted for Trump? I thought I knew who you were …’ You feel very estranged from your country.
Maron: Yeah.
Springsteen: So, those are all dangerous things that … and we don’t even know … you know, he hasn’t even taken office yet …
Maron: … and those of us who panic, are panicking …
Springsteen: … so, you gotta wait and see. But those are certainly the implications. And if you also look at who he’s been picking for his Cabinet, that doesn’t speak very well for what’s coming up. Uh, you know, those are all things that I’m very frightened of, and waiting to see play out, and all you can do is say, “Well, I’m gonna do my best to … Hey, America is still America, I believe in its ideals, and I’m going to do my best to play my very, very small part in maintaining those things.”
Maron: Are you writing about it?
Springsteen: No. I haven’t written about it. It takes a while to digest all those things … and I don’t know if I will, ’cause, I don’t go, “Okay, I need a Trump album. That’s what’s gotta come next.” …
Maron: No, but I think if you look at, certainly, your heroes, and certainly your shift into the power of popular folk music, and what folk music meant …
Springsteen: Well, I’ve got a lot of songs that are about it right now, you know, so …
Maron: I know, they’re all there, it’s done …
Springsteen: … they’re there. They’re kind of there already.
I work from the inside out. In other words, I’m inspired by something internally, and I make a record based on what I can write about at a given moment. Sometimes it ends up being topical. Sometimes it doesn’t. But we’ve got a good arsenal of material right now, that we can go out and sort of put in service.
