August 23, 2024
The music of Bruce Springsteen was heard at two (UPDATE: make that three - see below) key moments during this week's 2024 Democratic National Convention, occurring during Tuesday night's and Thursday night's proceedings of the convention. On Tuesday night, instrumental portions of "Born in the U.S.A." were played as the New Jersey delegation pledged its support for the Harris-Walz ticket during the official in-person "roll call" nomination process. Later that evening, during former President Barack Obama's speech expressing his full support of the Harris-Walz campaign, "Land of Hope and Dreams" was played as his walk-off music:
And thanks to useful information from The Asbury Park Press's Chris Jordan's report, as well as from helpful fellow fan Bernie Dougan, we know that the Democratic Party's candidate for Vice-President, Tim Walz, entered the convention on Thursday night to both "We Take Care of Our Own" and "Born in the U.S.A.":
While it certainly wouldn't be surprising if Bruce Springsteen approved the use of his music in these ways, it's also worth noting that the process for things like this is probably at least a bit different than it was during the last U.S. Presidential election season back in 2020. This is because just over a year after that electoral campaign ended, Springsteen sold all of his music rights to Sony Music Entertainment. Nevertheless, Bruce himself recently made the following comment, during his Ivors Academy Fellowship acceptance speech last May: "I’ve met many folks over the last fifty years, who worked at all levels at Sony Music, and one thing they all have in common is the dedication and respect that they’ve shown me, my songs, and my work, none more, of course, than Sony Music chairman Rob Stringer. Rob, thanks... I mean... I sold all my music and they still treat it like it’s mine."
Given what Springsteen said at last May's Ivors ceremony about his post-music-rights-sale relationship with Sony Music, a plausible scenario is that the Springsteen tracks played last Tuesday night during the 2024 Democratic National Convention's were played with the official licensing permission of Sony Music Entertainment, after Sony first consulted with and got approval from the artist himself. While such permission also might signal a forthcoming full-scale endorsement of the Harris-Walz ticket on the part of Bruce Springsteen, nothing further is yet known officially or publicly about whether that will indeed happen. It's yet another somewhat complex "wait-and-see" moment in an electoral season that's certainly been full of them (though of course it's also a relatively small such moment overall, in comparison to so many of the others.) Stay tuned, political (and music) junkies...
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