Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Tobia
Social climber
Denial
|
|
|
|
Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
|
|
I'm a deadhead, but this song has really struck me lately. Possibly the first major hip hop artist to speak out against homophobia. And he just won a BET award for it, to boot. That speaks volumes.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
The night Bruce Springsteen played East Berlin – and the wall cracked
Book unearths Stasi files to reveal how Communist leaders misjudged their bid to assuage East Germany's youth in 1988
"When Bruce Springsteen turned up in Communist East Germany on 19 July 1988, it was, according to one fan, a "moment some of us had been waiting a lifetime to hear". The US rock star greeted an audience that was restless, jaded and sick of being locked behind the Berlin Wall. And nothing, as it turned out, was to provide a better outlet for their frustration than a rock'n'roll concert.
But it was still a surprise when an estimated 300,000 people from all over the German Democratic Republic (GDR) surged into a large field by a cycle track to hear him play, while millions more watched the shaky and distorted transmission on state television. Historians believe almost no young East Germans did not know about it."
"The highlight of Springsteen's four-hour concert, in which he played a total of 32 songs, was undoubtedly a passionate speech, delivered in a creaky but understandable German, that carried a subtle but clear political message. "I'm not here for any government. I've come to play rock'n'roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down," he said to a crowd that erupted, before he launched into Bob Dylan's Chimes of Freedom, whose lyrics – about the "city's melting furnace … with faces hidden while the walls were tightening" – could hardly have resonated more with his captive audience, many of whom the crowd waved homemade American flags.
Historians believe Springsteen's gig, far from appeasing people, simply made them want more. "Springsteen's concert and speech certainly contributed in a large sense to the events leading up to the fall of the wall," Gerd Dietrich, professor of history at Berlin's Humboldt University, told Kirschbaum. "It made people … more eager for more and more change … Springsteen aroused a greater interest in the west. It showed people how locked up they really were.""
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jul/05/bruce-springsteen-east-germany-berlin-wall
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Ugliest House on the Block 
Let us know!