Barack Obama And Bruce Springsteen On Their Belief In A Unifying Story For America
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2021
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
And their conversations, they say, were an effort to offer some perspective and an attempt to try and find a unifying story for the country. The two talked about their dads, race, and the future of the country.
Those conversations have now become a book, titled Renegades: Born in the U.S.A. — and they spoke to Audie Cornish about it's publication.
You can watch a video of this interview and see images from the book here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Presidents do different things when they leave office. Some paint, some build houses. |
| 0:04.8 | Former president Barack Obama is now a content creator with a multi-million dollar Netflix production |
| 0:10.5 | deal. And of course, a podcast. Well, it's great to talk to a couple of podcasters from, |
| 0:16.7 | you know, Jersey and Hawaii. I think it's really great the way people are getting in the business. |
| 0:22.3 | We're hoping for a breakup. Now that podcast is called Renegades Born in the USA. |
| 0:27.8 | It's a buddy project with Bruce Springsteen. Recorded last summer, the pair say they wanted to share |
| 0:33.5 | conversations that might offer some perspective during a difficult period for the country. |
| 0:38.8 | Our general attitude was America was going through a reckoning. We had to figure out who we were. |
| 0:47.2 | And part of the goal of the podcast was to maybe offer with some humility the sense that |
| 0:55.7 | there is a common American story to be had under all the polarization and division and anger |
| 1:01.7 | and resentment that had been fanned during that year. In their conversations about fatherhood, |
| 1:08.1 | race and music, they say they're searching for a unifying story for themselves and for the country. |
| 1:15.4 | It was part of Obama's philosophy as a presidential candidate and Springsteen told me it's at the |
| 1:20.7 | core of what he does as a musician. Music searches for commonality, basically. I mean, that's the job |
| 1:27.5 | that I'm in. You know, what the artist does is he tries to get his audience to experience those |
| 1:35.4 | common values, that sense of shared narrative and to take that outside with them in the real world, |
| 1:42.0 | let's say, you know, so as a musician, that's basically my job. Consider this, |
| 1:51.0 | despite a year of oversized challenges, Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama are sticking to a shared |
| 1:57.6 | story of optimism. I do still operate on the belief that hope beats no hope, plan beats no plan. |
| 2:06.9 | From NPR, I'm Ody Cornish. It's Wednesday, October 27th. |
| 2:16.4 | This message comes from NPR sponsor VMware. With app, cloud, security and workspace solutions, |
| 2:22.6 | VMware helps companies navigate change, meeting them where they are and getting them where they |
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