Twelve years after appearing as its halftime musical entertainment, Bruce Springsteen returns to the Super Bowl, sans guitar, in a new commercial for Jeep.
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In the two-minute spot, titled “The Middle,” Springsteen provides a voice-over message of unity for a wounded nation. Filmed at several locations in America’s heartland, including small-town locales, wide open plains and majestic mountains in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska, the rock legend speaks in a calm but assured tone, hopeful for better days ahead.
“There’s a chapel in Kansas standing on the exact center of the Lower 48. It never closes. All are more than welcome to come meet here, in the middle. It’s no secret… The middle has been a hard place to get to lately.”
Springsteen wrote and produced the original music score with Ron Aniello, his producer and collaborator on recent records. According to Jeep, the Boss was intimately involved in creating “The Middle” and worked closely with longtime film director Thom Zimny.
The commercial, part of Jeep’s 80th Anniversary, can be viewed on the Jeep website but will only air on television one time- during the Super Bowl.
The decision to film the commercial was fairly recent, with rumors of Springsteen touching down at a private airport location in Nebraska this past Sunday. Jeep’s pursuit of Springsteen, though, reaches back much further, according to manager Jon Landau.
“Olivier Francois (Global Chief Marketing Officer of automotive maker Stellantis) and I have been discussing ideas for the last 10 years,” Landau said in a statement. “When he showed us the outline for ‘The Middle,’ our immediate reaction was, ‘Let’s do it.’ Our goal was to do something surprising, relevant, immediate and artful. I believe that’s just what Bruce has done with ‘The Middle’.”
“Bruce Springsteen was instrumental in crafting this joint message. His experiences and perspective have often been called upon to bridge a divide. Now seems to be a time when a message like this is greatly needed,” said Francois.
Springsteen ends the commercial echoing Martin Luther King’s message of hope. “We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground. So we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop, through the desert … and we will cross this divide. Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there’s hope on the road … up ahead.”
Over a haunting violin melody, the commercial ends with the words “To the ReUnited States of America.”
