It's Super Bowl Sunday and the stars are out, showing up in big budget commercials for the big game. Bruce Springsteen, who has never let his music be used in an ad, let alone appeared in one, decided to appear in a two-minute ad from Jeep titled "The Middle" that isn't so much about selling cars as it is about the idea of America and a need to find common ground. The ad was shot at U.S. Center Chapel in Kansas which is the geographic center point of the Lower 48 states.
"It's no secret the middle has been a hard place to get to lately,' Bruce says in voiceover narration set against scenes of Bruce driving around and visiting the church and other heartland locales. "Between red and blue, servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear. Now fear has never been the best of who we are. And as for freedom, it not the property of just the fortunate few. It belongs to us all. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, it's what connects us, and we need that connection. We need the middle." He later adds "We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground" and that "We will cross this divide." The commercial ends with the tagline, "To the ReUnited States of America."