Jonathan Cain thinks Bruce Springsteen is giving fans too much politics and not enough show.
The longtime Journey keyboardist and “Don’t Stop Believin’” co-writer went after Springsteen in a May podcast interview that resurfaced over the weekend, bringing Cain’s comments back into circulation while Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour was already drawing attention for its anti-Trump speeches.
Cain went straight at the 76-year-old rocker. “Guys like Bruce Springsteen should shut up, you know,” Cain told The Complete Disaster Network podcast. “Honestly, shut up, Bruce.”
Cain said he used to enjoy Springsteen before the stage speeches became the point of the show.
“Bruce, I mean, what the heck? I used to like him, and now he’s just annoying,” Cain said. “He’s an annoying, bitter old man. I mean, stop it.”
Cain contrasted Springsteen’s stage speeches with the way he handles his own politics and faith at Journey shows.
“Now, people say, ‘Well, you’re Christian, and you’re conservative,’” Cain said during the podcast appearance.
“And I’m like, ‘So what?’ I don’t preach it on stage. I don’t spend 10 minutes talking about it.”
Cain even dragged “Born in the U.S.A.” into it. He argued that the 1984 Springsteen classic carries a message that is not as pro-America as the title may sound.
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“You know, you were ‘Born in the USA,’ weren’t you, dude? So act like it,” Cain noted. “But even that song, if you look at the lyrics, I mean, it’s a kind of a diss to our country.”
Springsteen’s tour has given Cain plenty to object to. In April, Springsteen opened the tour by making the Trump administration part of the show.
“This White House is destroying the American idea and our reputation around the world,” Springsteen told the audience.
Springsteen kept droning on rather than singing. “To many, we are no longer looked upon as an often imperfect but strong defender of democracy standing for the global good,” he continued.
“We are now, to many, America the reckless, unpredictable, predatory rogue nation. That is this administration’s and this president’s legacy. This is happening now.”
At his Manchester stop, Springsteen kept attacking America under Trump from overseas.
“There’s some very weird, strange, and dangerous sh*t going on out there right now,” Springsteen said from the stage.
The Manchester remarks hit nearly every major anti-Trump note. Springsteen accused America of persecuting dissenters, said the richest men were “abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death,” and claimed the Trump administration was “taking sadistic pleasure” in the pain inflicted on loyal American workers.
Trump later returned fire online with a personal attack on Springsteen.
“Bad, and very boring singer, Bruce Springsteen, who looks like a dried up prune who has suffered greatly from the work of a really bad plastic surgeon, has long had a horrible and incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, sometimes referred to as TDS,” the president wrote.
“The guy is a total loser who spews hate against a President who won a Landslide Election, including the popular vote, all Seven Swing States, and 86% of the Counties across America.”
Springsteen was not the only celebrity Cain commented on for their anti-Trump antics.
He also brought up Robert De Niro, another liberal actor known for criticizing Trump, while arguing that artists should stop dragging politics into the work.
“Him and … who’s the other one? Robert De Niro,” Cain pointed out. “I mean, who cares, guys? Do your art. I try to keep politics out of my music.”
Cain’s larger argument was that music should pull different kinds of fans into the same room. He used The Beatles’ Paul McCartney as a prime example.
“I mean, Paul McCartney said, ‘Hey, when I sing Hey, Jude, Democrats and Republicans all sing together,’” Cain said. “And I feel the same way with Journey.”
“We have our parties out there in the audience, respective parties, and they’re singing Don’t Stop Believin’,” he added.
Cain’s verdict on celebrity politics was short. “I just don’t think it’s cool to have celebrities going there. It’s a bad look,” the musician continued.
The Journey veteran also pushed back on the idea that his own band needs approval from the mainstream. He pointed to Journey’s post-pandemic return as proof the band still knew its audience.
“Everybody told us we were going to fail, and we were crazy — we’re all going to die, you know?” Cain remembered.
“And we said, ‘Nonsense, it’s time to go back out and celebrate rock ‘n’ roll again,’ and we were right, and we filled every arena we played.”
Mick Jagger recently made similar remarks during a New York Times podcast interview.
Springsteen came up when Times correspondent David Marchese described his stage politics as a “meaningful back and forth” with the audience.
Mick Jagger Says It’s Not His Job to Lecture Rolling Stones’ Fans on Politics
NYT: “Bruce Springsteen clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth.”
MICK JAGGER: “My job in the live music world is for those people that come to have the best time … And you… pic.twitter.com/PmNaTgLjs7
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Jagger said the live show should give fans a break from everything outside the venue.
“The bottom line of my thing, really, is that my job in the live music world is [for] those people that come is to have the best time they possibly can,” the aging artist said.
Concerts, Jagger said, should be an escape. “For two hours or whatever it is, to forget all their problems and the problems of the world and their mortgages and whatever, just to give them the best time they can have,” he continued.
He compared the feeling to watching sports. “It’s similar to going to a sports event, really, because everything else is shouted out,” Jagger noted.
“You’re just watching who’s going to win. You’re not worrying about everything else.”
“You don’t want to lecture them,” he said of his audience.
Jagger said political ideas can still belong in music, just not as the whole show.
“I’ve got into this habit of doing songs that are about personal relationships and then I throw a verse about politics in there,” Jagger explained.
“I think that’s a trick that I’ve learned from other songwriters or listened to others because nobody wants to hear a whole song about politics.”