On January 28th, 2026, Bruce Springsteen released “Streets of Minneapolis,” a protest song he’d written “in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis.” He continued, “It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” And he signed it, “Stay free, Bruce Springsteen.”
On his website, Springsteen explained that he wrote the song on a Saturday, recorded it the next day, and released it the day after, probably the fastest he’s ever worked in the recording studio. That sense of urgency ties “Streets of Minneapolis” to the same lineage as Neil Young’s “Ohio,” a song written in response to the May 4, 1970 shootings of unarmed Kent State students by the National Guard. “Ohio” was written, recorded and released within weeks, something that was a lot harder to do in 1970 — part of the reason it made it out so quickly is that Atlantic label head Ahmet Ertegun happened to be in LA when CSNY were recording, and personally took the tapes back to NY — and with physical media.
