Henry Rollins: 'If a song could stop a war...'

Last week, we ran a Sunday piece on how the rock 'n' roll community sides so overwhelmingly with Barack Obama - which surely must have come as a shock to people.

Not really.

Anyway, since then, there's been more action on the campaign front. Bruce Springsteen is stepping up again with rallies in Philadelphia (Oct. 4), Ohio State University (Oct. 5) and Eastern Michigan University (Oct. 6) - despite news that John McCain was pulling his campaign out of Michigan. Springsteen will also perform for the first time with Billy Joel, Oct. 16, at the NYC's Hammerstein Ballroom. Also, Jay-Z will be in Detroit Oct. 4 and in Miami on Oct. 6.

What impact will it have?

In the PG story, Republican strategist Kevin Madden noted that he's a Boss fan, too, but that "like most people, I separate my music and my politics."

Madden and the former frontman for Black Flag probably don't agree on much, but they way people view politics and music might be one point they have in common.

In a recent interview with Paste, Rollins says, "I don't know if music has ever achieved anything past appealing to the people that it appeals to. If a song could stop a war, then Bob Marley and Bob Dylan songs would have stopped one or two. So many great anthems of peace and freedom and emancipation have already come down the way, and here we are in Iraq. Here we are pushing into Iran, into the Caspian region. So I don't know. Bruce Springsteen went out on behalf of John Kerry last [election], and look who won. I don't know what music really does. That doesn't mean you don't do it. I just don't think that we over-inflate the role that it plays. Perhaps in its absence we would see the real damage."

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