Lauren Onkey on Backstreets writes "Gonna Be a Long Walk Home," as Bruce introduces the new song later in the set, raises another question: how we start fixing the mess that happens when you fool enough of the people enough of the time.
A centerpiece of the Magic album and the 2007-08 tour, the new song is fully formed here, with the vocal chorus adding a sense of wistful sadness around the words "long walk home" that's missing from the E Street Band version. On E Street, it feels like "everybody has a neighbor, everybody has a friend, everybody has a reason to begin again." But here, the Sessions music, which carries in it so many stories of racial injustice and the abuse of power, conjures up a town of rank strangers.
As I write this, we are gearing up for what will be the most bizarre and divisive election season I've ever seen. We can't agree on facts. We've lost more than 160,000 people to the coronavirus. People have lost their jobs and businesses. The president is encouraging division. We're physically separated from those we love. The last verse of this version of "Long Walk Home," which didn't make the final cut on Magic, presciently captures the feeling of danger we're experiencing:
Now the water's rising 'round the corner, there's a fire burning out of control
There's a hurricane on Main Street and I've got murder in my soul
When the party's over, when the cheering is all gone
Will you know me? Will I know you? Will I know you?
"Long Walk Home" asks whether we're too divided, too fractured to rebuild principles of democracy. This set answers it with the gospel/civil rights anthems of "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "This Little Light," featuring Cindy Mizelle's house-wrecking performance, and the hard-won patriotism of "American Land." This show is a reminder that the Sessions tour offered an inspiring vision of America where truths can be told, where history matters."
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