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Sun 18 May 2025 13:35, UK
Pearl Jam have covered Bruce Springsteen’s ‘My City of Ruins’ after Donald Trump threatened the musician.
The Seattle band are currently performing an extension of their ‘Dark Matter’ world tour. On May 16th, they performed in Pittsburgh. During their encore, Eddie Vedder played a slower version of the hit.
The band did not exclusively state what the special cover was in service of; however, the Pittsburgh crowd seemed to be caught up in the recent feud and finished the song with a “Bruce!” chant.
The public feud between Springsteen and Trump began on the first of three dates that Springsteen is playing Manchester’s Co-op Live. He told those in attendance, “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.”
Springsteen delivered his longest speech of the night before playing’ My City of Ruins’ during the same concert. He began by saying, “There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.”
Trump caught wind of the speech and took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to respond. He stated, “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and, importantly, he’s not a talented guy — Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK.”
Trump then seemingly threatened Springsteen, adding, “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare’. Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
Despite the threat, Springsteen gave another impassioned speech at his show on May 17th, largely reiterating the same stance that Trump had initially attacked him for.
Since then, many have weighed in on the discussion. The American Federation of Musicians defended Springsteen and Taylor Swift, whom Trump had also recently attacked. Musician and Trump confidant Kid Rock had blasted Springsteen as a “punk” for his speech.
Springsteen will play one more night at the Co-Op Live on October 20th, after which he will hit stops in Lille, Marseille, Liverpool, Berlin, Prague, Frankfurt, San Sebastian, Gelsenkirchen, and finally Milan. He doesn’t seem to be backing down anytime soon.
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