“Shut Up, Bruce, You Were Born In The USA, So Act Like It,” Journey’s Jonathan Cain Says of Springsteen
· Thought Catalog
Updated 2 minutes ago, July 23, 2026
Both men are 76 and built careers on stadium anthems. Cain wants Bruce to drop the politics, and he’s not being polite about it: he calls him “an annoying, bitter old man” and says even “Born in the U.S.A.” reads like a “diss” toward the country.
Cain went after Springsteen on the “Complete Disaster Network” podcast, calling out his old-days idol by name. “I used to like him, and now he’s just annoying. He’s an annoying, bitter old man. I mean, stop it. Really. You were born in the USA, weren’t you, dude? So act like it. But even that song, if you look at the lyrics, I mean, it’s a kind of a diss toward our country.”
The Journey keyboardist puts Robert De Niro in the same bucket. “Do your art,” he said. “I try to keep politics out of my music.”
Cain, who’s married to evangelist Paula White-Cain, an advisor to President Trump, says he left the Democratic party years ago and now calls himself a “diehard conservative.” He counts Ted Nugent as a friend and lumps himself in with Kid Rock: “Me and Kid Rock, we’re probably on an island. There’s a few of us, and I proudly stand there with my flag on that island.”
His shot at Springsteen lands as the Boss hammers Trump on his current tour, calling the administration “treasonous” from the stage. Cain, meanwhile, was promoting “Winds of Freedom,” a new patriotic solo single he insists doesn’t count as mixing politics with music.
The two men are the same age. Both spent the ’80s writing the anthems that filled American arenas.
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