Roll of the Dice: Magic

“We live in an Orwellian time when what´s true can be made to seem like a lie, and what´s a lie can be made to seem true. So this song is not really about magic–it´s about tricks. And their consequences.”  –Bruce Springsteen, October 15, 2007

It’s about gaslighting. And division.

I write this from a hotel room just fifteen minutes from my house in suburban Seattle, because despite our best efforts to keep our house sealed, after several days of toxic air in what is for the moment at least the most polluted city on earth, the haze in our home, the redness in our eyes, and the burning in our throats compelled us to leave for the duration.

The smoke, as you most certainly know if you follow the news, comes from the wildfires engulfing the western half of the United States at the moment–wildfires caused by Antifa, I’m told by my social media feed. Or possibly Black Lives Matter. Although if California had only swept their forest floors, this wouldn’t be an issue, because climate change is a hoax, like that whole Russia thing.

So my family and I are holed up in a hotel because we can’t be outside, and we can’t be in a mall, restaurant, movie theater, or any other public place inside, because of a virus that China unleashed on us, but that our president did a great job of defeating. And now we’ve turned a corner, except that lots of people are still dying, but it would have been so much worse without our president’s great leadership.

Yes, he was caught on tape admitting he was lying to us about the threat posed by the virus, but that’s what leaders have to do sometimes in order to keep us calm. And sometimes rile us up.  And besides, if those comments were really so bad, that reporter wouldn’t have sat on them for so long, right?

But the point is: America’s back! Just look at the job creation numbers if you need proof, and don’t pay any attention to the job losses that both precede and parallel them, because they don’t count.

Hey, that saw blade sure is shiny. Can we see a magic trick?

Bruce Springsteen released “Magic” in 2007, but it’s only grown in importance and relevance since then. This year in particular, it’s almost a mantra. There’s not a day that goes by that Bruce’s lyrics don’t echo in my brain.

Trust none of what you hear.

I’ll cut you in half while you’re smiling.

The freedom that you sought’s drifting.

Carry only what you fear.

This is what will be.

Life imitates art imitates life.

Bruce wrote “Magic” during the second Bush administration, and while it was meant as a commentary on an era that seems almost quaint in retrospect, it was also a frighteningly accurate foretelling.

This is what will be.

“Magic” sounds sinister from the outset, its eerie backing track conjuring the image of a haunted carnival (an apt metaphor in and of itself). Our narrator is a politician who sees himself as a magician so adept at his craft that he can tell us his secrets even as he uses them to deceive us.

I got a coin in my palm
I can make it disappear
I got a card up my sleeve
Name it and I’ll pull it out your ear
I got a rabbit in my hat
If you wanna come and see
This is what will be
This is what will be

You’ll see what I want you to see, he tells us. I’ll misdirect you so you’ll miss what I don’t want you to notice. And whether you like the trick or not, you won’t be able to look away.

I got shackles on my wrists
Soon I’ll slip ’em and be gone
Chain me in a box in your river
And I’ll rise singing this song

If you catch my deception, I’ll deny it. Prove it, and I’ll dismiss it. You’ll think, “this time we’ve got him for sure,” but I am the ultimate escape artist. I will make you doubt your own senses.

It’s the next lines of the song that get the most attention…

Trust none of what you hear
And less of what you see
This is what will be
This is what will be

…and they certainly convey essential advice.

But as we’ve seen time and again across Bruce’s catalog, the true heart of “Magic” is its bridge:

I got a shiny saw blade
All I need’s a volunteer
I’ll cut you in half
While you’re smiling ear to ear
And the freedom that you sought’s
Driftin’ like a ghost amongst the trees
This is what will be
This is what will be

I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of those lines when “Magic” was first released. Only in the years since have I appreciated their potency and prescience.

It’s not lies and deception from a government that pose the most danger to a society–it’s the intentional division. The “you” that the narrator addresses is plural, not singular. He’s addressing all of us–the entire country–promising to cut us in half, if we’ll only just let him. And we did, and he did, smiling all the way.

We think we’ve been protecting our freedom, securing it–but it’s been steadily drifting away the entire time while we fight each other.

That’s the core message at the heart of “Magic”: When we demonize each other, we clear a path for the demons to come to power.

Gaslighting won’t fool all of the people, but it’ll fool enough of us to divide us against each other. And once that happens… well, Bruce drives it home in the last verse with lyrics that are almost certainly an intentional inversion of “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

Now there’s a fire down below
But it’s coming up here
So leave everything you know
Carry only what you fear
On the road the sun is sinking low
There’s bodies hanging in the trees
This is what will be
This is what will be

The fire down below is the latent hatred, prejudice, and division so carefully cultivated for years. At the time Bruce wrote “Magic,” it hadn’t yet erupted on the surface, but he knew it was coming.

Leave everything you know. Set aside your skepticism. Disregard your common sense. Reality is what I tell you and what I show you, not what your own senses reveal.

Carry only what you fear. Embrace the lies that fit like a jigsaw piece in your worst nightmares.

The sun is sinking low. We’re nearing the end of our run. We’re in our descendancy.

There’s bodies hanging in the trees. 

This is what will be.

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Since I started writing this blog, I’ve joined several vibrant Facebook groups devoted to the life and art of Bruce Springsteen.

They are wonderful communities.

I’ve made many friends there and exchanged many stories. I’ve learned to appreciate Bruce’s music in new ways and have had my eyes opened to alternative interpretations of Bruce’s songs that I would never have discovered on my own. I’ve learned to appreciate songs I never much cared for, and when I’ve made mistakes, I’ve benefited from knowledgeable people who set me straight with mutual respect and appreciation.

Through the magic of social media, I’ve been lucky to get to know people from places, backgrounds, and circumstances so far removed from my own that I would likely never have met them otherwise.

But there’s a particular commonality among them that disappoints me, even though I understand and respect where it comes from: few if any permit (let alone invite) political discussion.

Like I said, I do understand why: far more often than not, it seems, political discussions degrade into personal attacks. That’s because we’re so deeply divided.

But fighting against division requires those kinds of conversations. Refraining from it only perpetuates the problem. It’s like fighting cancer with chemotherapy: the side effects in the moment suck, but it’s the most effective way to destroy the disease. It also inoculates us against future attempts to gaslight us, because we will always trust our friends and neighbors more than our politicians.

There’s no better time or place to have a political discussion than with people with whom we share a common interest. It’s the one sure-fire antidote to demonization: how can this person be so terrible if they appreciate the same art that I do? It may take some practice and some patient reminders for us to remember to debate the idea and not castigate the person, but the only way we build that muscle is to exercise it.

Or put another way: the only real cure for division is conversation.

Engaging in debate about political art isn’t just a way to bridge division–it’s also how we honor the artist.

It’s been said that there are only two great topics to write about: love and politics, and they’re really the same thing anyway. Our politics are just the way we live our relationships on a macro level instead of a micro one.

Bruce has written extensively at both altitudes, and to refuse to discuss the half of his art that is political strikes me as enormously disrespectful (although I absolutely recognize that it isn’t meant that way) to an artist that pours his heart and soul into his work. Artists create in order to communicate and to be understood, not ignored.

It’s nice when your audience appreciates your work individually, but you really hit paydirt when you spark discussion. I don’t know Bruce at all, but I have to believe that he loves it when a fan professes to love his music but hate his politics–because that means we’re not so divided yet that we can’t find common values and principles to agree on.

You probably already know my political leanings, as I’ve deliberately made no attempt to hide or disguise them. But we can hold positions that are abhorrent to each other, and yet we can still recognize our shared values and empathize with our unique life circumstances and experiences that led us to advocate for very different policies.

So as part of my commitment to both honor the art and our community, here’s my invitation:

Political comments (on topic for the song in question, at least) are always welcome here, and I’m happy to discuss the political content and context of Bruce’s music by e-mail or Zoom with anyone, either one-on-one or in groups. As long as we all pledge to remain civil with each other (and be patient and forgiving with each other if we slip), I’ll happily engage with anyone who wants to be part of the solution and start bridging divisions.

So feel to reach out to me through the blog or wherever else we engage on-line, and let’s start having the important conversations. And then if we can convince others with shared interests to do the same, we can start the long work of repairing our social fabric.

This is what will be.

Magic
Recorded: March-May, 2007
Released: Magic (2007)
First performed: September 25, 2007 (Asbury Park, NJ)
Last performed: June 23, 2008 (Antwerp, Belgium)

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