Bruce Springsteen Mocks President Trump’s Tense Phone Call with Australian PM by Playing ‘Don’t Hang Up’ at Melbourne Show

Gil Kaufman
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Bruce Springsteen always knows just what to sing when he’s got something on his mind. Take his show in Melbourne on Thursday (Feb. 2) at AAMI Park, where The Boss played a cover of The Orions’ 1962 No. 4 Billboard Pop Chart single “Don’t Hang Up” to mock the allegedly disastrous phone call between President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The unlikely cover of the doo-wop song featuring the lyrics “Don’t hang up (no no)/ Oh don’t you do it now, don’t hang up (No No)/ Don’t hang up like you always do/ I know you think our love is true/ I’ll explain the facts to you, don’t hang up,” came after the Australian media spent the day obsessing over what has been described as a tense conversation with Turnbull on Saturday during w the two men reportedly clashed over the American president’s controversial immigration policy.

More from Billboard

In a YouTube video of the show’s opening moments, Springsteen, alone on the stage with an acoustic guitar, addresses the crowd by saying, “we stand before you embarrassed Americans tonight. This was a song from 1965 by the Orions we gonna use it to send a letter back home.” The rock icon then yelled “we come from a land of immigrants! This is an immigrant song” as the full E Street Band ripped into “American Land” from 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.

Amid the global protests against Trump’s immigration ban, E Street guitarist Steven Van Zandt sent a clear message on Twitter before the show, apologizing for Trump’s allegedly abrupt behavior with Turnbull.

 

Check out the Orions’ original:

Best of Billboard

Click here to read the full article.