Iraq, Katrina and Illegal Immigration

A talking head on CNN tonight argued the issues most important to minority voters would be 1) Iraq, 2) the Bush administration's response to Katrina and 3) illegal immigration.  My mind, being mine, immediately constellated the three and returned a memory of the perfect lyric:

"Hey kid, you think that's oil?
That ain't oil that's blood."
I wonder what he's thinking when he hit that storm—
Or was he just lost in the flood?

Then:

And some kid comes blastin' round the corner,
But a cop puts him right away.
He lays on the street holding his leg screaming something in Spanish,
Still breathing when I walked away.

And somebody said, "Hey man did you see that?
His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud."
I wonder what the dude was saying—
Or was he just lost in the flood?

It sounds better than it looks.  But doesn't it look topical?  A song about a veteran returned back from the front; the mistaking of blood for oil; a tale about overzealous police employing excessive force.  It could be topical. 

It isn't.  Not in the least.  But damn is it ever evocative:

Comments

[WRW]

I'm trying to think of a more pretentious way to say "made me think" than "constellated," but I'm drawing a blank. Do you have any suggestions?

[Robert Zimmerman]

That man knows something about commitment. And pacing--a fine combination. And unvarnished honesty is always topical, don't you think?

[zunguzungu]

But "constellated" actually doesn't mean "made me think." It means his mind drew lines between three otherwise unconnected objects and made a shape out of them, a shape that exists only in his mind (which raises the question of where his headless frame keeps that mind, but anyway), and then produced a lyric that corresponded to it. But wait, that's not all; then, he raised the very issue that the metaphor of the constellation foregrounds: whether a set of specks on the horizon actually *are* connected together, actually *are* a dragon, a dipper, or a hunter became a segue into the question of whether the unique conjuncture of those three issues in that song actually *is* a reference to how minority politics constructs its subject in the social landscape. "It looks like a figure carrying water pitchers, but does its zodiac really control my destiny?" I ask myself. "It seems topical, but how could Bruce Springsteen have known?" Only the gods know for sure; only the gods, Bruce, and Acephalous.

[Tim Lacy]

Is it just me, or is there a Springsteen song for all occasions? ...I'm not saying this is a bad thing. - TL

[Mike Russo]

There is not a Springsteen song that goes with the frisson of horror that comes of walking into your office one morning to see undergraduates having sex in it, to the best of my knowledge.

Although I can totally construct a High-Fidelity-style Springsteen talking-head-while-strumming-guitar vignette around it.

Slightly more on topic: yes, lovely song. He changes the line about "wolfman fairies" in the live in NYC record from 2000, correctly I think.

[The Library]

"His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud."

Works written, but is magic when sung.

Here's hoping for more Springsteen-related political news!