I’m grateful that Bruce Springsteen wrote and recorded a new song to express anger over the federal government’s despicable terror campaign in the Twin Cities. His towering prominence as a rock artist guarantees attention, and the track is good, too. Even so, when it comes to protest songs about what’s happening in the city down the highway from me, I favor the folk firebrand who’s been willing to call fascism out by name for more than forty years. Just imagine what it will be like when Billy Bragg next takes the stage at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis and launches into “City of Heroes.” I plan to be in that crowd.

Bragg’s words:

The ghost of Martin Niemöller
Haunts the halls of history
When they came for the communists
He said “It’s nothing to do with me”

When they came for the democrats
He had nothing to say
And when they came for the Jews
He just looked the other way

His silence didn’t save him
When they came for him as well
There was no one to speak out for him
Resistance had been quelled

What excuses would you tell yourself
If this ever happened to you?
Well I live in a city of heroes
I know what I would do

When they came for the immigrants
I got in their face
When they came for the refugees
I got in their face
When they came for the five-year-olds
I got in their face
When they came to my neighbourhood
I just got in their face

They use tear gas and pepper spray
Against our whistles and our phones
But in this city of heroes
We will protect our home

When they dragged people from their cars
I got in their face
When they took families from their homes
I got in their face
When they murdered our sister
I got in their face
When they murdered our brother
I still got in their face

In Dachau Martin Niemöller
Suffered for his complicity
But in this city of heroes
We learn the lessons of history

I will bear witness to terror
I will bear witness to tyranny
I will bear witness to murder
I will bear witness to fascism