Bruce Springsteen, who has long been outspoken in his discontent with President Donald Trump, spelled out his intention for his upcoming Land of Hope and Dreams tour with the E Street Band: “The tour is going to be political and very topical about what’s going on in the country,” he told the Minnesota Star Tribune in an interview published Wednesday.
“The E Street Band is built for hard times,” he said. “It always was. These are the moments when I think we can be of real value and real worth to the community.”
The trek will kick off on Tuesday in Minneapolis, where the artist gave a live debut to his “Streets of Minneapolis” song at Tom Morello’s anti-ICE protest concert in January, before concluding in Washington, D.C., on May 27. Springsteen is also scheduled to appear at St. Paul’s No Kings protest, a movement Springsteen called “of great import,” on Saturday.
“I don’t know of another time when the country has been as critically challenged and our basic ideas and values as critically challenged as they are right now,” Springsteen told the paper. “I’d have to go back to 1968 when I was 18 years old to another moment when it felt like the country was so on edge and like it felt there was simply so much at stake as far as who we are and the country we want to be and the people we want to be. It’s a critical, critical moment.”
Morello will join Springsteen at every date of his upcoming tour. In the Star Tribune interview, Springsteen said that Morello gave him invaluable advice about writing “Streets of Minneapolis.” “I tend to write more nuanced even with my political or topical songs,” the singer-songwriter said. “I never want to sound like I’m on a soapbox. But as Tom said, ‘Nuance is wonderful, and sometimes you have to kick them in the teeth.’ And this was one of those times.” He added that he’s excited to have Morello on the tour since “He always brings a little edge to the E Street Band.”
Trump’s White House has been dismissive of Springsteen’s resistance activism in recent months. In January, a spokeswoman for the White House said it would not comment on “Streets of Minneapolis,” which recognized the lives of two American citizens killed by ICE in the city. “The Trump administration is … not [focused on] random songs with irrelevant opinions and inaccurate information,” she said.
And when Springsteen announced the tour, another White House spokesperson, Steven Cheung, was similarly dismissive with a surprisingly pun-filled, run-on statement. “When this loser Springsteen comes back home to his own City of Ruins in his head, he’ll realize his Glory Days are behind him, and his fans have left him Out in the Street, putting him in a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out because he has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his brain.”
Springsteen told the Star Tribune he didn’t worry about political blowback. “My job is very simple: I do what I want to do, I say what I want to say, and then people get to say what they want to say about it. … I don’t worry about if you’re going to lose this part of your audience,” he said. “I’ve always had a feeling about the position we play culturally, and I’m still deeply committed to that idea of the band. The blowback is just part of it. I’m ready for all that.”
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it had teamed up with Springsteen to create a 30-second spot protesting a January 2025 executive order Trump signed to change the Constitution so that the country would no longer grant citizenship to babies born in the United States. The ad uses Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about the executive order’s legitimacy on April 1.
“‘Born in the U.S.A.’ perfectly captures the stakes of our birthright-citizenship case,” the ACLU’s executive director told Rolling Stone. “The peril and promise of the moment are embodied in this song. It is perfect for this case, for this moment.”
