BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

We had an epiphany of sorts the other day.

The conflict of the Democratic leadership elites in D.C. vs. their abandoned populist working class and minority base really has a musical solution.

In short, why can't the Dems in D.C. heed the spirit of the music of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seeger? Both are all-American rockers. But they have never sacrificed their empathy for and hard-driving lyrical championing of their working class roots.

This is what the Democratic Party needs to be: "Made in the U.S.A." and ready to "Face the Promise."

The latter is the title of one of the Midwest's rock poet laureate, Bob Seeger (John Mellencamp is the other). It's his first album in ten years.

As one review notes on his fan site, "Face the Promise is loud, passionate, smart, rocking, and intimate. It does what a Seger album should do -- it shows his amazing breadth as a songwriter, musician and performer. And it does was a great album must do -- it goes straight into your chest and your feet and your heart, and stays there."

Heck, if the Democrats could evoke that sort of passion out in the fly-over states, they could take back Kansas in a presidential election.

Here's the point: Springsteen and Seger get to the emotional gut, which is something the Dems haven't been able to do in a long, long time.

We're not suggesting Bruce or Bob (or John) run for office. Not in the least. They are briliant, stirring musicians -- and that is their calling and gift to us.

But the Dems need to understand that voters are moved by passion, not just being defined by not being the other party -- the tyrannical, mendacious one that controls the government now.

You need to touch the heart and shake and rattle the bones of the voters, something Springsteen and Seger (and Mellencamp) do with their music.

In a time of Washington corporate elitists running the nation, Seger and Springsteen have kept alive the populist tradition of championing the unheralded working American -- and giving us a bountiful catalogue of rock n' roll that literally moves us.

"Face the Promise" isn't an overtly political album (although it has one song on the Iraq War), but it is an album that in some ways, if you listen to its hearbeat, tells us so much about where the soul of the Democratic Party should be.

That's because Seger has never forgotten his roots -- and the sometimes bittersweet, sometimes triumphant, voices and spirit behind his music.

Seger is one of those classic American rock musicians who mixes the great American cocktail of freedom, opportunity, hope, love and loss into one fantastic pulsating musical beat.

America needs to "Face the Promise" -- and we need leaders to take us there.

In the meantime, we have musicians like Seger still pumping out the great promise of being an American, as befits a rocker from America's motor city, Detroit.

He lays before us our mistakes -- in life and love -- and the uniquely American opportunity for taking another ride on the open road of freedom.

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS