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Musician Steven Van Zandt gifts Jamie Raskin a bandana, wishes him a 'rapid' recovery

Steven Van Zandt, seen performing at the Hammerstein Ballroom in 2014, is a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.
Mike Coppola
Steven Van Zandt, seen performing at the Hammerstein Ballroom in 2014, is a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band.

When congressman Jamie Raskin began wearing bandanas while enduring cancer treatments, he credited E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, and his signature scarves, for his new look. Van Zandt has now taken Raskin's fashion options a step further and gifted the Maryland Democrat a bandana.

"You are about to see a step up in my chemo head-cover fashions for the next few months," Raskin tweeted, alongside a photo of him donning his new bandana.

Raskin, who was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, announced he would begin chemo-immunotherapy in December. The cancer treatment, Raskin said in the announcement, "causes hair loss and weight gain." He later confirmed the drastic hair loss to CNN, telling the outlet that he is "losing about 40 or 50 hairs a day."

Within a month, the politician could be seen wearing a bandana at a House committee hearing. He later told HuffPost that he took inspiration from the bandanas Van Zandt, who also goes by Little Steven, often wears.

"I give all honor to Little Steven for creating this look for American men going through something," he told the outlet.

On Saturday, Raskin shared that the musician and actor gifted him a bandana. In the tweet, Raskin said he would treasure the gift "from one of the greatest musicians on earth."

Van Zandt retweeted the photo, wishing the Maryland Democrat "a rapid complete recovery."

"That gift is from all of us who want to thank you every day for giving us hope that there is a politician that cares about justice!" Van Zandt said.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a weekend reporter for Digital News, based out of New York. She previously covered education and other national news as a reporting fellow at The New York Times and as the national education reporter at Capital B News. She interned for POLITICO, where she covered criminal justice reform in Florida, and CNN, as a writer for the trends & culture team. Her work has also been published in The Atlantic, HuffPost and The New Republic.