Watch Bruce Springsteen Deliver A Poignant Performance Of ‘My Hometown’ At The Tony Awards

Across 2017 and into 2018, there’s hardly been a harder ticket to get on planet Earth than one for Bruce Springsteen’s critically-acclaimed, one-man show on Broadway. Last night, “The Boss” was given a special award at the Tonys — which puts him just one Emmy away from a full EGOT by the way — and while he was there, came through and delivered a moving, spoken-word rendition of his Born In The U.S.A. favorite “My Hometown.”

As is the case for many of the songs that Springsteen performs during his Broadway show, “My Hometown” was adapted as a vehicle for the illustrious singer-songwriter to tell stories from his own life. In this case, Springsteen spoke about growing up “surrounded by God and all my relatives” near St. Rose’s Cemetery in Freehold, New Jersey, where the people in his circle — most notably his own father Doug — did all they could to “hold off the demons, outside and inside, that sought to destroy them.”

Springsteen was presented his award for the evening by his good friend Billy Joel, but it was the person who introduced his performance that caused the most waves of the evening, the actor Robert De Niro, who tested the censors’ skills by loudly stating “F*ck Trump” twice while live, on-air.

It’s a sentiment Springsteen himself might concur with. Shortly before Trump was elected, he told Rolling Stone that, “The republic is under siege by a moron, basically, The whole thing is tragic. Without overstating it, it’s a tragedy for our democracy. When you start talking about elections being rigged, you’re pushing people beyond democratic governance.”

You can watch Bruce Springsteen’s performance of “My Hometown” above.

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