With This Tear

 There are a lot of artists that I love but where I just don't really care about their outtakes or alternate takes or b-sides or rarities or whatever. 

But I do not understand how an artist, no matter how great, can have a "With This Tear" in the can for 25 years. That, right there, is one indication of just how mindblowingly great an artist Prince was. 

For most other really, really good artists, this might be a Top 5 track. 

He didn't even bother releasing it. 

(I know, I know, Celine Dion did. The point still stands.) 

Streets of Minneapolis

Protest songs are nothing new for Bruce Springsteen. An argument could be made about which was his first officially released—was it "Lost in the Flood" or "Factory" or "Born in the USA" or "Shut Out the Light" or "Streets of Philadelphia" or something off The Ghost of Tom Joad or "American Skin (41 Shots)"? 

Whichever one it was—whether one of those magnificent songs or some other—he's never been nearly as direct as this slab of straightforward outrage, where he directly names names of many of those responsible for the murder of a pair (so far) of law-abiding Americans. 

As the man wrote:

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free, Bruce Springsteen

Through the winter’s ice and cold

Down Nicollet Avenue

A city aflame fought fire and ice

‘Neath an occupier’s boots

King Trump’s private army from the DHS

Guns belted to their coats

Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law

Or so their story goes

Against smoke and rubber bullets

By the dawn’s early light

Citizens stood for justice

Their voices ringing through the night

And there were bloody footprints

Where mercy should have stood

And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets

Alex Pretti and Renee Good

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice

Singing through the bloody mist

We’ll take our stand for this land

And the stranger in our midst

Here in our home they killed and roamed

In the winter of ’26

We’ll remember the names of those who died

On the streets of Minneapolis

Trump’s federal thugs beat up on

His face and his chest

Then we heard the gunshots

And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead

Their claim was self defense, sir

Just don’t believe your eyes

It’s our blood and bones

And these whistles and phones

Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice

Crying through the bloody mist

We’ll remember the names of those who died

On the streets of Minneapolis

Now they say they’re here to uphold the law

But they trample on our rights

If your skin is black or brown my friend

You can be questioned or deported on sight

In chants of ICE out now

Our city’s heart and soul persists

Through broken glass and bloody tears

On the streets of Minneapolis

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice

Singing through the bloody mist

Here in our home they killed and roamed

In the winter of ’26

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

We’ll remember the names of those who died

On the streets of Minneapolis

Happy Birthday