Bruce Springsteen brings ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ home to launch a political US tour

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Bruce Springsteen returns Tuesday to the “Streets of Minneapolis.” After honoring its residents in song for their courage in standing up against the federal immigration crackdown, he’s using the city to launch his latest U.S. tour.

The New Jersey rocker released “Streets of Minneapolis” in late January amid the nationwide outcry over the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers. On Tuesday night, the Boss and the E Street Band are expected to perform it when they take the stage at Target Center to kick off the “Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour.”

“This tour is going to be political and very topical about what’s going on in the country,” Springsteen told the Minnesota Star Tribune in an interview published Wednesday. “Minneapolis and St. Paul, that was the place that I wanted to begin it, and I wanted to end it in Washington.”

Springsteen told a New York City audience on March 23, during a 30th anniversary celebration for the independent news program “Democracy Now!,” that his tour will head next to Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles, “two other cities where they had to deal with ICE, ICE’s terror.” It ends May 27 in Washington, D.C., where he said he’ll have a few choice words for the White House.

“Streets of Minneapolis” was one in a series of tributes released by international artists and countless local performers as thousands of Minnesotans took to the streets. Springsteen played a solo version Saturday during the national flagship “No Kings” rally at the state Capitol in St. Paul.

“This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis,” Springsteen told a crowd estimated by the Minnesota State Patrol to be 100,000 people. “Well, they picked the wrong city. The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis, of Minnesota, was an inspiration to the entire country. Your strength and your commitment told us that this is still America, and this reactionary nightmare, and these invasions of American cities will not stand.”

The gritty video that Springsteen released for “Streets of Minneapolis” captured a city under siege by 3,000 federal officers, which President Donald Trump’s administration called its largest immigration enforcement action anywhere in the country.

“We’ll take our stand for this land/And the stranger in our midst/We’ll remember the names of those who died/On the streets of Minneapolis,” Springsteen sang.

The video shows masked and armed agents in tactical gear, including the face of the operation, Greg Bovino, who was pulled out of Minneapolis amid the backlash and is preparing to retire. It also shows 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, surrounded by immigration officers, whose photo stirred outrage around the world.

And it also showed the makeshift memorials that sprang up where Good and Pretti were killed, interspersed with clips of the final moments of the two as they confronted officers. It climaxes with video of thousands of residents who filled the streets of Minneapolis as they chanted “ICE Out!”

There’s no love lost between Springsteen and Trump, who have long feuded. During his European tour last year, Springsteen slammed the Trump administration as “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous,” and denounced Trump as an “unfit president” leading a “rogue government” of people who have “no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.”

Trump, in turn, has called Springsteen a “dried out prune of a rocker.” In a social media post, the president once wrote, “Never liked him, never liked his music or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — just a pushy, obnoxious JERK,” he wrote on social media.

Springsteen has long emphasized socially conscious music, which brings up another Minnesota connection. In 1984, when he released his album “Born in the U.S.A.,” with its title cut, an often-misunderstood lament of a disillusioned Vietnam veteran, he kicked off his tour in St. Paul.