Bryan Adams has a very clear message for anyone down South who thinks his home country of Canada is on the market: “We’ll never be the 51st state.” The Ontario-bred rocker released a pointed protest song aimed at an audience of one on Wednesday (July 1), just in time for Canada Day, which this year celebrates the 159th anniversary of Confederation for our neighbors to the North.
“51st State,” was released on YouTube and other social media platforms as a spicy rejoinder to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated musings about absorbing the sovereign nation into the fold and making it, well, just refer back to the song’s title.
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“We’re way better hand in hand/ But the 49th parallel/ Has become a line drawn in the sand/ Let me give it to you straight/ When you’re talking about my home/ You better show some respect/ Cuz up here we take care of our own,” Adams sings on the energetic rock tune preaching national unity in the face of threats of a hostile takeover.
Without specifically naming Trump, but leaving little doubt as to his target, Adams also takes a swing at another one of Trump’s favorite economic warfare cudgels when he warns, “So let me give you some advice mister/ You might have too much on your plate/ Go’n load us up with tariffs/ But we’ll never be the 51st State.”
For much of his second term, Trump has made repeated threats about annexing Canada, while imposing a series of on-and-off again tariffs. That unprovoked saber-rattling has resulted in an upsurge of Canadian unity and national pride, as well as retaliatory tariffs on energy exports, consumer boycotts of U.S. products and the pulling of American liquor from store shelves in some regions.
The “Summer of ’69” star also includes a pointed reminder of the mutually beneficial, century-plus relationship between the two nations that share the longest (5,525 miles) international land boundary in the world. “Maybe you’ve forgotten/ Maybe you just don’t care/ But we always stood beside you/ For that liberty we share,” he says, warning in the most Canadian way that if pushed to the brink, his legendarily polite fellow citizens might not be so nice this time.
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“You can push us to the brink/ But where the open road divides/ You’ll find a wall of maple/ With us on the other side,” he sings. Adams, who released his 16th studio album, Roll With the Punches, last August on his own Bad Records label — which also issued “51st State” — is scheduled to hit the road in the U.S. this summer beginning with a July 24 show at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis.
