ANAHEIM, Calif. — Bruce Springsteen walked alone onto the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, armed with only his acoustic guitar and a message for the tens of thousands gathered there for a No Kings protest on Saturday, March 28.

He’d arrived there a few days before his Land of Hope and Dreams Tour resumed for 2026 with a Minneapolis show on Tuesday, March 31.

But Minnesota has been on Springsteen’s mind most of this year, he acknowledged, given how strongly he empathized with Minneapolis residents when ICE agents flooded its streets in January.

“This past winter, federal troops brought death and terror to the streets of Minneapolis,” he said. “Well, they picked the wrong city. The power and the solidarity of Minneapolis, of Minnesota, was an inspiration to the entire country.”

For Springsteen, that inspiration led to a new song, “Streets of Minneapolis,” released in January, just days after Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by ICE agents, “King Trump’s private army,” as the lyrics go.

It was that song which Springsteen played on Saturday, repeating the line, “In our chants of ‘ICE out now,” until most of the more than 100,000 people had joined in.

Reports from rehearsals in New Jersey for his current tour suggest that protest songs are likely to be featured in this U.S. leg of the tour. In addition, the new “Streets of Minneapolis,” he and the E Street Band were heard working up covers such as Edwin Starr’s “War” and Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom.”

None of this should come as any surprise to anyone who knows Springsteen and his work. He’s long been a songwriter interested in societal and political topics, whether as a working-class troubadour singing songs about downtrodden blue-collar workers in broken-down towns, or penning songs about Vietnam veterans, police shootings, corporate predations and more.

So lets look at 10 songs that display Springsteen’s instincts as a protest singer in like many he has followed or collaborated with including folk singer Joan Baez, who was also at the St. Paul rally, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who is touring with Springsteen this year, and Patti Smith, whose “People Have the Power” he performed with her at a March benefit show.

1) “Lost in the Flood,” 1973: This moody track from Springsteen’s debut album is one of his earliest recorded portraits of the disillusionment and danger of life in the modern world. The story unfolds like a slow-motion movie seen from the window of the singer’s car as he crawls past Vietnam vets, nihilistic street racers, dreamers of a dream that no longer exists. The idealism of the ’60s is dead; what lies ahead no one knows.

Lyrics: “And someone said, ‘Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.’ / I wonder what the dude was sayin’ / Or was he just lost in the flood?”

2) “The River,” 1980: The title track of Springsteen’s fifth album reads like the kind of blue-collar vignettes he’d mastered on “Born to Run” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” But by now, it’s clear that the personal is political in songs such as “Factory” on “Darkness” or “The River” here. Economic inequalities can be as devastating as war to the dreams of the young.

Lyrics: “I got a job working construction / For the Johnstown Company But lately, there ain’t been much work on account of the economy / Now all them things that seemed so important / Well, mister, they vanished right into the air / Now I just act like I don’t remember / And Mary acts like she don’t care.”

3) “Johnny 99,” 1982: Springsteen’s bleakest album, “Nebraska,” has been viewed by some as a lament for the collapse of the American dream. Nowhere is that clearer than in this song about factory worker Johnny, who after losing his job, goes on a bender that ends with him fatally shooting a man. He’s remorseful and hopeless, and when sentenced to 99 years in prison, asks the judge to go ahead and strap him in the electric chair.

Lyrics: “Now judge, judge I got debts no honest man could pay / The bank was holdin’ my mortgage and takin’ my house away / Now I ain’t sayin’ that make me an innocent man / But it was more ‘n all this that put that gun in my hand.”

4) “Born in the U.S.A.,” 1984: One of Springsteen’s signature songs, it was originally titled “Vietnam Blues” when first recorded in an acoustic version during the “Nebraska” sessions. Two years later, the title track of Springsteen’s seventh album arrived all revved up and fully electric. No matter how many times politicians, including Ronald Reagan, tried to co-opt it as a ain’t-it-great-to-be-American theme, it remains a blues for the Vietnam vets who returned from war to an indifferent nation.

Lyrics: “Born down in a dead man’s town / The first kick I took was when I hit the ground / End up like a dog that’s been beat too much / ‘Til you spend half your life just coverin’ up, now.”

5) “Streets of Philadelphia,” 1994: A template for 2026’s “Streets of Minneapolis,” this theme from the 1993 film “Philadelphia” is a more polished song, written over months to accompany the first big Hollywood movie to tackle the AIDS crisis, rather than the more torn-from-the-headlines “Minneapolis.” Springsteen’s empathy shines through this Academy Award-winning single.

Lyrics: “The night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake / I can feel myself fading away / So receive me, brother, with your faithless kiss / Or will we leave each other alone like this / On the streets of Philadelphia?”

6) “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” 1995: Springsteen had long been inspired by John Steinbeck, from whose novel “The Grapes of Wrath” he took the title character of this song and album. The lyrics pair Dust Bowl migrant Tom Joad with an unnamed modern-day homeless man in a shout against American capitalist cruelty. Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine’s Morello recorded a sizzling electric version of this 12 years ago, which could be a live highlight of this year’s tour.

Lyrics: “Men walking along the railroad tracks / Going someplace and there’s no going back / Highway patrol choppers coming up over the ridge. Hot soup on a campfire under the bridge. Shelter line stretching around the corner / Welcome to the new world order / Families sleeping in the cars in the southwest / No home, no job, no peace, no rest.”

7) “American Skin (41 Shots),” 2001: Inspired by the real-life shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed Black man by four NYPD plainclothes officers, “American Skin” tackled racial bias, white privilege, and police shootings with a sensitivity that many mistook as an anti-police diatribe. In fact, Springsteen wrote one verse from the perspective of the officers who mistake the man’s reach for his wallet as a reach for a gun.

Lyrics: “Forty-one shots / Lena gets her son ready for school / She says, ‘On these streets, Charles / You’ve got to understand the rules / If an officer stops you / Promise me you’ll always be polite / And that you’ll never ever run away / Promise mama you’ll keep your hands in sight.’”

8) “Matamoros Banks,” 2005: You’ll have noticed by now that our definition of protest song is a broad one. This tune from the “Devils & Dust” album is a gentle, heartbreaking story told in reverse of an immigrant’s tragic quest for a better life for his family on the American side of the Matamoros River, told with dignity and respect.

Lyrics: “Your clothes give way to the current and river stone / Till every trace of who you ever were is gone / And the things of the Earth, they make their claim / That the things of Heaven may do the same.”

9) “Death to My Hometown,” 2012: This rousing Celtic-inspired protest song tackles the 2008 financial crisis with a finger pointed at bankers and businesses whose reckless management of the markets hurt small towns and ordinary people in disproportion to the losses suffered by the wealthier demographics.

Lyrics: “Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it till you’re done / Yes, sing it hard and sing it well / Send the robber barons straight to hell / The greedy thieves who came around / And ate the flesh of everything they found / Whose crimes have gone unpunished now / Who walk the streets as free men now.”

10) “Land of Hope and Dreams,” 2012: Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball” dove deeply into the damage done when the Great Recession rocked the nation’s economic underpinnings in 2008. Songs such as “Death To My Hometown,” “Easy Money,” and “We Take Care of Our Own” were among those tackled the topic. Here, near the end of the album, Springsteen offered a hopeful balm to the pain and hardship the crash brought, singing of a better future for all. Call it a protest song of hope and dreams — and love.

Lyrics: “Grab your ticket and your suitcase / Thunder’s rolling down this track / Well, you don’t know where you’re going now / But you know you won’t be back / Well, darling if you’re weary / Lay your head upon my chest / We’ll take what we can carry / Yeah, and we’ll leave the rest.”

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