O'Brien: There is a whole school of thought, as you well know, that says that musicians -- I mean you see it with the Dixie Chicks -- you know, go play your music and stop.'circumstantial evidence' is generous.
Springsteen: Well, if you turn it on, present company included, the idiots rambling on on cable television on any given night of the week, and you're saying that musicians shouldn't speak up? It's insane. It's funny.
O'Brien: As a musician though, I'd be curious to know if there is a concern that you start talking about politics; you came out at one point and said, I think in USA Today, listen, the country would be better off if George Bush were replaced as president. Is there a worry where you start getting political and you could alienate your audience?
Springsteen: Well that's called common sense. I don't even see that as politics at this point ... You don't take a country like the United States into a major war on circumstantial evidence. You lose your job for that. That's my opinion, and I have no problem voicing it.
there's also something creepy about soledad, a journalist, asking "Is there a worry where you start getting political and you could alienate your audience?" - perhaps we could extrapolate that to journalism - where they dress up faux objectivity into 'objectivity' - precisely so that they don't alienate their audience. sad. dangerous. "that's called common sense. "
4 comments:
wake up said...
Good point. I'd also say that while certainly many musicians, actors and artists have little of substance to add to any debate and are prone to parroting slogans and offering simplistic views of complex issues that receive attention solely because of the celebrity of the speaker the same can be said of many "news celebrities" as well.
More saliently, I would say that it is far worse for "news celebrities" to exploit their noterity for partisan politicking than for "artistic celebrities" to do so. I can disagree with a musicina's politics and that really has no bearing on what I think about his music; I don't have greater distrust of his musicianship because he might have partisan biases. With a "news celebrity" the bias directly affects the value of his actual work product.
11:13 PM
Well a musician's political views could affect their lyrics, thus earning your contempt.
Beware the glitterati.
No sparklers allowed.
WU - yeah - the pundit class really are a disgrace - spouting nonsense about stuff that they know nothing about every sunday and so on - carefully drawing a line equidistant from the batshit insane RW views and the regular RW positions
And then,... there are those pesky politicians who thinJ they can sing.
Let's not forget john Ashcroft's Let the Eagle Soarrrrrr.
I'd rather have a political musician.
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