If you’re feeling helpless, if you’re feeling hopeless, if you’re feeling betrayed, if you’re feeling frustrated, if you’re feeling angry, I understand. That’s why we’re here tonight. We needed to come to Washington and feel your strength, hope, and faith.

These were the words that Bruce Springsteen said before singing Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom”, during a recent concert in Washington, D.C.

His message was not just one of denunciation; it was one of solidarity—connecting people to the common threads that comprise our humanity, that make universal rights a foundation for a free society.

The song is a dramatic poetic tour of a stormy night, in which the storm unites instead of dividing and the power of Nature becomes a celebration of human rights and freedom:

We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashing,
As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds,
Seeming to be the chimes of freedom flashing,
Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight,
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight…

The experience of human frailty, suffering, and sympathy echoing in the storm continues…

Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing…