I was telling my neighbor Swamp Rabbit that Bruce Springsteen’s new song about the DHS murders in Minneapolis is heartfelt and timely. Too bad the melody is dreary, the vocal overwrought and the likelihood of the song changing the beliefs of MAGA morons almost nil. Is this the best we can expect to hear?

Swamp Rabbit, trying to be cute, started singing “Where have all the protest songs gone?” to the melody of Pete Seeger’s old chestnut, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

This was his way of mocking my question, I figured. More accurately, his way of dismissing the idea that protest songs can motivate great numbers of people to play an active role in advancing worthy causes.

“The Boss is preaching to the choir,” he said. “You said it yourself — that song ain’t gonna change them yahoos who think it’s OK to kidnap peeps and send ’em to torture camps.”

I told him he should at least give Springsteen credit for struggling against the tide in a time when so few artists seem to have a social conscience. “Streets of Minneapolis” won’t move the MAGA crowd, but it might compel apathetic liberals to march in rallies, call Congress and vote in the midterms. Maybe it will spark widespread feelings of community and common purpose, like “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “What’s Goin’ On” or “Ohio” in the old days.

“Them days are gone,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Now there’s Spotify and TikTok and so on. The music biz is cranking out more songs than ever, but they’re like candy corn. Pop tart songs. The peeps eat them for the sugar rush, quick as a blink. Even the hits don’t last. They ain’t made to last. This ain’t 1968.”

I told him there was a lot of candy corn in 1968, too, but also a lot of good songs, even good protest songs. Songs you could sink your teeth into.

He laughed his grisly laugh and said, “If there are good protest songs now, most peeps ain’t hearin’ ’em. They been conditioned to go for the candy corn, it’s cheaper and easy to swallow. Serious songs give ’em indigestion.”

I shook my head and said, “Man, I thought I was the cynical one. You’re a real mess.”

“You ain’t foolin’ me, Odd Man,” he replied. “You use Spotify all the time so you can play all them old boomer songs. But you know we can’t stop what’s coming.”

“Especially when it’s already here,” he added.

Footnote: Swamp Rabbit is mostly right but the current scene is not completely bleak. The folksinger/guitar strummer Jesse Welles, a talented agitator who writes with Dylanesque humor, makes videos that have generated huge followings on TikTok and Instagram. Check out “Join ICE.” If you’re an old dude like me, you may not have heard Joseph Torrell, Jensen McRae or Mon Rovîa either.