Bruce Springsteen releases ‘Streets of Minneapolis’, a song in protest against ICE, “Trump’s private army”, and “in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good” | Culture

It is impossible for the events taking place in Minneapolis, with scenes of police brutality and random arrests, which have already left two deaths, to go unnoticed. The protests are making themselves felt, and the world of culture is raising its voice to try to stop the unreason. The latest has been the always committed musician Bruce Springsteen, who this Wednesday released a song about the city, called Streets of Minneapolis (Streets of Minneapolis). In the song, marked by his usual rock, he refers to the political situation that the city is experiencing and talks about “King Trump’s private army”, how ICE agents “trample our rights” and the deaths that have occurred in the city: “In our home, they killed and wandered in the winter of ’26. We will defend this land and the foreigner who is among us. We will remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis.”

The 76-year-old musician has posted the song, which lasts just over four and a half minutes, on his website, on Spotify, and also on his YouTube channel, where it has reached 100,000 views in just three hours. He has done it all in four days: writing it, recording it and delivering it to the public. “I wrote this song on Saturday, I recorded it yesterday (Tuesday, January 27) and I release it today in response to the state terror that is being experienced in the city of Minneapolis,” he wrote in an accompanying message. “It is dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, to our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good,” he says, referring to the two people murdered at the hands of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service: Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of two children, on January 7, and Pretti, a nurse, also 37 years old, on Saturday the 24th.

The song begins by talking about the cold of winter on Nicollet Avenue, one of the main arteries of the city in the northeast of the country, precisely where Alex Pretti was shot to death, and which is now taken over by “the fight between fire and ice.” In addition to the fact that the city has suffered temperatures of more than 20 degrees below zero due to the storm Fernwhich has left her in a frozen state, Springsteen makes a play on the acronym ICE, which also means ice. “King Trump’s private army of DHS, with weapons strapped to their coats, arrived in Minneapolis to enforce the law, or so they tell their story.”

In a kind of song, an epic, Springsteen goes on to explain how, “against the smoke and the rubber bullets,” the citizens of Minneapolis “rose in the name of justice, and their voices echoed in the night.” “And there were bloody footprints where there should have been mercy, and two dead bodies abandoned on the snow-covered streets: Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” Here comes the chorus: “Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice singing through the bloody fog. We will defend this land and the stranger among us. Here in our home they killed and wandered in the winter of ’26. We will remember the names of those who died in the streets of Minneapolis.”

In the second verse, Springsteen quotes the president’s name again, to tell the story of Nurse Pretti: “Trump’s federal thugs hit him in the face and chest. Then we heard the gunshots and Alex Pretti was lying in the snow, dead.” And he continues: “They claimed it was self-defense, sir. Don’t trust what your eyes see. It’s our blood and our bones. And these whistles and phones against the dirty lies of Miller and Noem,” he sings, in reference to Stephen Miller, advisor to the president and considered the architect of the Administration’s war against immigrants; and Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, whose name is in the pillory after the murders and may be dismissed.

There, Springsteen returns to the chorus, with choruses, guitars and his classic harmonica: “Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice crying through the bloody fog. We will remember the names of those who died in the streets of Minneapolis.” And then, at minute three, comes the bridge: “Now they say they’re here to enforce the law, but they trample on our rights. If your skin is black or brown, my friend, you can be questioned or deported on the spot. With chants of ‘ICE, get out,’ the heart and soul of our city persists through broken glass and bloody tears on the streets of Minneapolis.” And it’s back to the chorus, again, with variations: “Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice singing through the bloody fog. Here in our home they killed and roamed in the winter of ’26. We will defend this land and the stranger among us. We will remember the names of those who died in the streets of Minneapolis.”

The always committed Springsteen — who is a good friend of Barack Obama, with whom he recorded a podcast and wrote a book, and who campaigned for Trump’s rival, Democrat Kamala Harris — has raised his voice on countless occasions against the current president and his undemocratic policies. In fact, on his last tour of Europe he was directly explicit when it came to criticizing the president of the United States. When he started his tourin Manchester, UK in May, was clear, even before I started singing. “My home, the America that I love, the America that I have written about and that has been a beacon of hope and freedom for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” he told the audience, continuing: “Tonight we ask all who believe in democracy and in the best of our American experience, to stand up with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring.”

Trump was quick to respond to the Bossclaiming that he was “overrated” and “dumb as a rock” on his social network, Truth Social. “I never liked him, I never liked his music or his radical left politics and, most importantly, he is not a talented guy. Just an arrogant and unpleasant idiot who fervently supported the corrupt Joe Biden, a mentally incompetent idiot and our WORST president in history, who was about to destroy our country,” he wrote a couple of days after the Manchester concert, to continue in his usual threatening tone: “This rocker dried out as a raisin (he has all his skin) atrophied!) he should keep his mouth shut until he returns to this country. That’s normal. Then we’ll see how it goes.”

But Springsteen has not remained silent, nor does he intend to, as this last song demonstrates. More than 30 years after his famous song Streets of Philadelphia (Streets of Philadelphia), part of the film’s soundtrack Philadelphia and with which he won the Oscar for giving voice to the reality of a city hit by AIDS and marginalization, now he plays music and shows the world the streets of the city that is the epicenter of pain in the United States.