BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - LAND OF HOPE AND DREAMS

Land Of Hope and Dreams

About 20 years ago I did a Masters in Theology on Music And Social Transformation so I love music when it speaks to power on issues of justice, inequality and war. 

In the 80’s Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn and U2  taught me politics in 4 minute songs. 

People tell me that music hasn’t the power to change things. All I can say is that Live Aid took me back to Scriptures and was a main influence in my understanding of the Kingdom of God and ministries I am involved in across the world and around the corner as a result. I know at least one politician who does what she does as a result of the music of U2. 

In that Masters dissertation I looked back to the theological work of James Cone who saw the importance of spirituals and the blues in the civil rights movement.  

This weekend Bruce Springsteen has entered the protest arena again. His words at his recent Manchester concert about his country’s President and government has been the talking point for some days. 

So, Springsteen has released an EP with his two song introductions included. It is a potent little release. 

The songs are potent little protests, hopes and prayers. Land Of Hope and Dreams is maybe my very favourite Springsteen song because of its sense of hope, heaven and shalom, a younger brother of Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready. It's like a hymn.

Long Walk Home is the song of the four that I know least. It was written as a critique of the George W Bush administration. 

City Of Ruins is introduced by Bruce’s saying like the best priest or vicar “Let Us Pray”. He has been using it as a prayer since way back to 9/11.

Chimes of Freedom is that Bob Dylan cover that Bruce used way back on the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour of 1988. 

They are all perfect messages into Springsteen’s nation’s current political zeitgeist. But the introductions add loads. He says:

 

In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.

Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us. Raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring.

 

It’s like an MLK call to stand up. Before the My City In Ruins he goes again -

 

In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.

 

He concludes -

 

They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American. The America that I've sung to you about for 50 years is real, and regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people.

So we'll survive this moment.

Now, I have hope because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, in this world, there isn't as much humanity as one would like. But there's enough.

Let's pray.

 

As it finishes, I feel fuelled. To stand. To hope. To pray. The power of music. The companion that music can be as we take the long walk to that land of hope and dreams. 


A CASE OF YOU; THE SONGS OF JONI MITCHELL - Fitzroy 22.5.25

Savage Joni

Chatting to my friend Paul at the interval and he pointed out how the band sounded like Van Morrison's players on Astral Weeks. I hadn't thought of it like that though I was aware of how much the band was a major part of this creative evening of Joni Mitchell songs. 

Suzanne Savage singing Joni Mitchell is quite the exciting prospect. Suzanne had been the voice to Ruth McGinley's virtuoso piano playing in Fitzroy back in December for a night of Christmas Songs From The Movies. One of those songs was Joni's River. It was remarkable and the thought of an entire evening...

Suzanne has this voice. Oh it is much purer than Joni's. It actually would feel very much at home in some musical in London's West End. Yet, she has this unique elasticity of reach and range of her tone and timbre that in the midst of other vocal characteristics all working at the same time, Joni's eccentric folkie then jazzy pitch rises to the top. At times what she does is breath taking.

But back to the band. When we returned to our seats for the second half and the set list moved from Blue and Court and Spark to Hijera and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, my mate Paul's assessment was followed through. When they tackled Joni's early skirmishes with jazz we realised that this was where Rod Patterson on double bass, Johnny Taylor on piano and Aenghus Hackett on guitar, are in their habitat. The arrangements and playing is loose yet meticulous. Astral Weeks indeed Paul!

As you can tell I am impressed. Janice and I were tired after a mad week with a big day ahead but could we leave in the break. No way. 

The first half reminded us how great a writer Mitchell is. It flitted across my mind that maybe she is the best ever in terms of poetry, music, craft and emotion. Better than Dylan. Than Lennon & McCartney. Maybe. Certainly up there.

Carey, California, Chelsea Morning, Free Man In Paris and the less known perhaps Rainy Night House. Oh my. The lines, the couplets, the vulnerability. Above those if possible.

Circle Game with it's philosophical look at time.

A Case Of You, for me one of the best songs ever and this lines, "You said, "Love is touching souls"/Surely you touched mine" as I reach foe my wife's hand and "I'm frightened by the devil/And I'm drawn to those ones that ain't afraid" as I sit in the Church I have been minister for 16 years.

All I Want though was drawing me out tonight. Again the spirituality. Oh, "I hate you some, I love you some/Oh, I love you when I forget about me" opening up the sacrifice and surrender of loving well and "I wanna make you feel better" the vocational intention of love.

In the second half I was back on that road journey that conjured in Joni's head the musical adventure of Hijera. How I love Coyote and Amelia got its Derry city connection. The band really jazz funked Black Crow and rocked out Raised By Robbery before that dissertation on the good and heartache of love Both Sides Now.

Amazing. There are another 40 years of Joni still to unpack but I can loudly declare that these guys show A Case Of You; The Songs Of Joni Mitchell is well worth seeing... and hearing! 

 


TALKING U2 - STOCKMAN AND BAILIE WITH CRAWLEY ON TALK BACK

Stocki and Bailie and Crawley

ALL THINGS BONO (& U2)

TALK BACK on BBC Radio Ulster

Monday May 26th 2025 (12.03 - 13.30)

with WILLIAM CRAWLEY

and guests STUART BAILIE & STEVE STOCKMAN

 

William Crawley and his Talk Back Team have used the seven minute standing ovation that Bono received for the screening of his soon to be released film Stories Of Surrender at the Cannes Film Festival to have a U2-fest of a show on Monday May 26th.

I am a little thrilled to be asked to share alongside Northern Ireland greatest rock journalist, Stuart Bailie, my subjective thoughts on the band as well as objective critiques and loves.

Can I also encourage you to listen tot he entire show as there will also be an interview with the wonderful Belfast songwriter Andy White.


GARY LIGHTBODY - BOOK SIGNING IN NO ALIBIS

Jani  Gary  Me and Davy

Oh I hate meet and greets with famous people. I have met many of my very favourite singers, would call some friends and others acquaintances but I hate these signing things. Approaching someone and in an unnatural few seconds trying to connect. People might think that is easy for me. Nope. 

Today, it was Gary Lightbody. Now Gary is a close friend of some friends and I of course got to interview him live on stage one amazing night at the 4 Corners Festival. Even then though.

Today he used the Fitzroy car park. With a free minute or two in mid morning I dandered down Botanic Avenue to my favourite bookshop No Alibis to find a book for summer reading. As I browsed, the most lovely shop proprietor on earth, David Torrans sidled up to say that Gary Lightbody would be in at 12.30 for a signing of his book The Forest is The Path.

It was now 11.30 so I went back to my staff and as I did I texted my mate Davy. "If you are with Gary and need a car park, use Fitzroy." He pinged back an immediate acceptence.

A couple of the congregation then spotted our Snow Patrol main and very tall man in that car park. I was going to avoid the embarrassment of the meet and greet and go home for lunch but with a little persuasion Janice and I sauntered down. We chatted to the aforementioned Davy and David and waited for the book buyers to get their books signed.

After the queue is ended, I face the awkward moment. I introduced myself and our night In Conversation and Gary played very good at remembering.

It is then that fill the gap moment, trying to meaningfully confabulate with someone that you know all about but don't actually know.

I mean the question that I chose was utterly foolish. With seconds to consider it I would not have so stupid to say, "So is there a difference signing after a gig and. at a book signing". A gig is a night's craic, no matter how much the emotion or message of the songs hit. Gary's book is about grief and the death of his father. Of course it is different. Duh!

Gary answered as I answered my own question almost  half way through asking!

I then shared with him about a friend who had messaged me soon after the book came out. He is a Hospital Chaplain and told me to tell Gary (everyone thinks I am the friend of all rock stars) that he was so thankful for the book. It has so helpful to him as he pastorally cares for people in grief. That was a better means to connect than that first ridiculous question!

Gary's book is a really helpful and honest opening up about mental, emotional and spiritual health in the long dark shadow of loss. As I said, it is all built up around his father dying and the aftermath. It had me deep in reflection about my own parents dying. They leave behind so more than grief. We go on untangling the regret and love and stretch our minds, hearts and souls to come to terms, to continue to be their friends, to resolve, to forgive, to relive, to carry on.

Gary does this in such a lyrical and imaginative way. Raw and vulnerable. Resonating in every line. I was reminded that this is the same grief genre of writing as another classic on that subject by another Campbellian, CS Lewis - A Grief Observed. Like Lewis’s, Gary's makes for a very spiritual book, though not “official” spiritual as Lewis’s was.

Of course a signing will be different than signing an album or whatever in a store or after a concert. All of us are grieving. The only difference between us is that we are at different phases of that grief. As I walked back to Fitzroy I wondered about all those who just got a book signed and prayed that the reading of The Forest is The Path would be pastorally helpful to them all.

Apologies Gary about my clumsy opening lines. Thank you for such a helpful book. It could become a manual to our inner workings. Not to be read and shelved but to surmise again and again over time.