BLOOD OF THE SUN

We watched some of Springsteen's segment on the Vote for Change concert before the debate last night. Earlier, while flipping through some of the gawdawful interview "color" segments, I had heard some electric guitar noodling through the "Star Spangled Banner," and thought to myself: This should be marked "property of Hendrix" and left alone. Could anybody rediscover all the dread and racial tyranny of Vietnam that Hendrix caught in his searing, greet-the-Woodstock-dawn reverie? But then Bruce took the stage with an ACOUSTIC 12-STRING and did his own national anthem, and suddenly the song's violence and desperation came alive again, with all the references intact: this was the Boss doing Jimi doing Vietnam doing Iraq, and the analogies held fast. Hendrix's horrifying grandeur haunted Bruce's playing without overshadowing it, and half the terror was in hearing a black man's echoes of Vietnam while thinking about George W. Bush. It did more to refute the Swift Boat Liars than any debate could.

PS: "Guaranteed Not to Split" was written on John Lennon's first guitar.

PS2: Atrios links to this WMA video of Bush saying "I'm not that concerned..." about Bin Laden.

PS3: Following the SPIN magazine tip, I've tuned into http://www.littleradio.com, and I'm not looking back.