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“If there’s any hope for America, it lies in a revolution,” Phil Ochs famously said. “And if there’s any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara.”

Well, we’re about 50 years removed from Phil’s untimely death, but his music and his wit continue to resonate. And, in a way he couldn’t possibly have predicted, we’re kind of getting there.

Last week, Bruce Springsteen released his latest song, “Streets of Minneapolis.” It is, as you might guess from the title, a protest song that addresses the government terror being visited on Minnesota in recent weeks.

Here’s the thing: I have been listening to Springsteen since I was a kid. I remember the day I fell in love: it was November 11, 1992, when I saw the MTV (Un)Plugged version of “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

Shortly after that, Springsteen released The Ghost of Tom Joad, a fairly political record that still resonates given how many of its doomed characters were abused immigrants. And, of course, one of his most famous (and famously misunderstood) songs is “Born in the U.S.A.,” about a returning, traumatized veteran who is left behind by the system. Bruce has never been apolitical.

It’s difficult to explain how significant it is that Springsteen has released a straightforward protest song that removes all abstraction and metaphor and unambiguously names names.

Springsteen has never shied away from politics — that goes all the way back to “Lost in the Flood,” from his first record more than 50 years ago — but he has always done so through storytelling and metaphor. His anti-Reagan, anti-Bush, and anti-Trump songs were always laundered through big ideas and abstract scenarios. Even “41 Shots (American Skin)” did not explicitly name Amidou Diallo (although the title made it abundantly clear it could be about no one else).

This doesn’t feel like Bruce Springsteen’s protest songs — it isn’t “Rainmaker” or “Devils and Dust.” It doesn’t even feel like most of Dylan’s protest songs; it isn’t “The Times They Are A-Changin’” or “Masters of War.” This feels more like a Phil Ochs song.

Phil titled his first record All The News That’s Fit to Sing, and wrote songs about Paul Crump, Medgar Evers, Joe Hill, James Dean, and more — all naming names. In a famous exchange, Dylan told Phil Ochs, “You’re not a writer, you’re a journalist.”

Bruce, for his part, has had the kind of explosive pop music success that Phil dreamed of. He was famously featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek at the same time in 1975, and has headlined some of the biggest tours in rock history. He is clearly inspired by Elvis Presley — so much so that an Elvis Fan Club button appears on the cover of Born to Run.

So…this isn’t quite Elvis becoming Che Guevara. Elvis was gone about a year after Phil.

But it’s Bruce Springsteen becoming Phil Ochs, and that’s arguably the next best thing.