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And Finally Artist News
Brendon Urie and Bruce Springsteen have high hopes for the end of Trump’s presidential run
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 24 June 2020
Good morning and welcome to the latest edition of ‘Musicians Who Don’t Like Donald Trump’. It’s a long old list and today we’re confirming (or re-confirming) two names on it: Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie and good old Bruce Springsteen.
Urie’s distaste for the orange autocrat manifested itself in a classic ‘stop using my song’ tweet, after Trump played PATD’s ‘High Hopes’ at his recent lacklustre rally in Oklahoma. “Dear Trump Campaign”, Urie wrote. “Fuck you. You’re not invited. Stop playing my song. No thanks, Brendon Urie, Panic! At The Disco and company”.
“Dear everyone else”, he added. “Donald Trump represents nothing we stand for. The highest hope we have is voting this monster out in November. Please do your part”.
Bruce Springsteen, meanwhile, a long-time vocal opponent of Trump, has also voiced concern for the US if Trump wins a second term as president later this year.
“I believe that our current president is a threat to our democracy”, Springsteen tells The Atlantic. “He simply makes any kind of reform that much harder. I don’t know if our democracy could stand another four years of his custodianship. These are all existential threats to our democracy and our American way of life”.
He’s positive that change is coming though, he adds: “Our president’s numbers appear to be crashing through the basement. That’s a good sign”.
“I believe we may have finally reached a presidential tipping point with that Lafayette Square walk”, he says, referencing Trump’s recent teargassing of peaceful protesters outside the White House so that he could pop out to have his photo taken in front of a church. “[That] was so outrageously anti-American, so totally buffoonish and so stupid, and so anti-freedom of speech. And we have a video of it that will live on forever”.
Coincidentally, Springsteen, like Urie, has a song called ‘High Hopes’. Although, as far as I know, Trump has never played that one at any of his rallies. Actually, it’s possibly unlikely the President would use a Springsteen track, because, you see, the dislike is mutual. And Trump is also outspoken about the musician’s support for the Democrats.
At a rally last year, he boasted of getting by without the support of big names like Beyonce, Jay-Z and “little Bruce Springsteen”, adding that Springsteen’s performances at Hillary Clinton rallies ahead of the last election were worth little because he would “do about two songs, then leave… and everyone leaves with him”.
While it may be true that Trump came to power without the support of most of the US music industry’s biggest stars, his general unpopularity among music-makers always makes it hard to book bands to play any Trump affiliated events. Although in 2016 a Bruce Springsteen tribute act was booked to perform at a Trump inauguration party. Until they pulled out because of, well, of course they did.
