Rolling Stones frontman and rock-n-roll legend Mick Jagger says a singer should avoid politics and should simply just entertain his fans, unlike extreme left-wing scold Bruce Springsteen, who constantly lectures his fans from the stage.
Jagger, 82, delivered his opinion on a New York Times podcast last week when Times correspondent David Marchese noted that the Born in the USA singer feels that he needs to impose his politics on his audience at every concert.
Marchese claimed that Springsteen “clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth” with his audience. That is a curious way to frame Springsteen’s haranguing of his audience from the stage. In fact, there is little “back” from the audience. With Springsteen, as its all “forth” from the stage.
Marchese then asked Jagger how he felt about all that.
Jagger, though, was completely dismissive of Springsteen’s need to bully his fans.
“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,” Jagger said.
“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,” Jagger continued.
“It’s similar to going to a sports event, really, because everything else is shouted out,” he added. “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.
Of course, Bruce Springsteen, 76, is quite proud of burdening his audience with his political ranting. He has even declared himself a “patriot” for hating Donald Trump.
And burden he does. At every venue. At one of his concerts in May, for instance, the 1980s rocker claimed Trump and his voters are “racist” and “treasonous.” And he reads long diatribes from the stage at every event as he continues his politically-motivated Land of Hope and Dreams American tour.
See the whole interview with Jagger here:
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