"This Machine Kills Fascists"

The Easter Bunny (actually Indie Blog Heaven) has one more little gift for you today: an exclusive track from the new Bruce Springsteen album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, which will be released on April 25. "Pay Me My Money Down" is an old-school hootenanny singalong that may not be to everyone's taste--but it's fitting that Springsteen should be singing this sort of thing, especially now.

Cut from the same template as Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and other populist guitar-slingers, Springsteen surprised no one by taking the September 11 attacks as inspiration for his album The Rising, and by taking an overtly political stand against Bushism in the runup to the 2004 election. And in 2006, if there's one damn song Americans ought to learn how to sing again, it's "We Shall Overcome." While we're revisiting some of the songs Seeger made famous, maybe we can take some measure of hope and inspiration from the words of Guthrie, which were carved on his guitar, and which are the title of this post.

(Over at the Daily Aneurysm last Friday, I blogged on the subject of another culturally and politically aware musician making a statement. Read it here.)