NOW THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!

What kind of crazy f*cked up world do we live in where Bryan Adams writes the best protest song of the Trump era?

At a time where you only get a second or two to hook people, I got this song immediately. It’s like Adams channeled his eighties success and pulled one out of his back pocket to wow us.

First and foremost it’s about the music, the lyrics come second. This is one of the reasons Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis” was a failure, Bruce was coming from the right place, it’s just that he came up with a lame song. You could applaud his effort, it’s just that one listen, if you could make it through, was more than enough, whereas “Lake Ontario” works IRRELEVANT OF THE LYRICS!

Now if you know your Bryan Adams history, he had huge success with his “Reckless” album and then was criticized for having nothing to say, not facing the issues, unlike his compatriots on the hit parade, U2. That’s what happens when you succeed, people find fault. Your success cannot be complete, the cognoscenti have to find fault. And in this case Adams blinked.

Now there are some good songs on “Into the Fire,” most notably the title track and “Heat of the Night,” but it was criticized as a lame effort to be au courant, to make a statement, and it was nowhere near as successful as its predecessor. “Reckless” went five times platinum, whereas “Into the Fire” topped out at one. Then Adams hooked up with the best producer in the business, Mutt Lange, and released “Waking Up the Neighbours,” which went four times platinum, a very solid album, it was boosted by the inclusion of the title track for the “Robin Hood” movie, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” which cut like a knife in the wrong way to those who’d spent their lonely nights with Adams’s second album breakthrough, “You Want It You Got It,” still my favorite record of his.

And then Adams became the theme song guy. He recorded “All for Love” with Rod Stewart and Sting for “The Three Musketeers” and then “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” for “Don Juan DeMarco.” Bryan had huge commercial success with these numbers, but talk about playing it safe…

Furthermore, on his second Mutt album Adams put out the hooky “The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You” which had lyrics only a pimply teenager who can’t get laid could resonate with and “18 til I Die” was not a whole hell of a lot better. Talk about meaningless music.

But his catalog was deep and his voice was unique and Adams continued to deliver live, his audience in Europe remained especially strong.

Now unlike most of his brethren, Adams continued to make new music into the twenty first century, and it was good, but it had little traction, after all there was nowhere to play this music anymore. So if you had Adams on your Bingo card to deliver such a straight to the heart take on Donald Trump and today’s inane situation…you didn’t. You didn’t even bother to put a bet on Kalshi. Bryan was in his own private Idaho, playing to fans who remembered when and…

THEN HE COMES OUT WITH THIS!

“From glacial erosion – to indigenous care
From European exploration – to industrial wear and tear
The ‘lake of shining waters’ is what the Iroquois called her
It’s a First Nations name – not an executive order”

That’s what Canadians call Native Americans, First Nations. The indigenous people were treated badly in Canada just like in the U.S., the only difference being that in the Great White North they’ve acknowledged their bad behavior and have been paying penance up front and center for the last few decades. Go to a public event, the First Nations are mentioned. And Adams is giving the Iroquois their due, they were here first, he’s honoring their heritage, unlike Donald Trump, disrespecting seemingly everybody but himself and those who pay him fealty, thinking he can change history with a pronouncement on Truth Social.

But that verse is oblique compared to what comes after. Sure, there’s a reference to the “executive order,” but then…

“But things weren’t going his way in Iran
So like a baby tossing the toys from the pram
He may have thought it best to throw a low blow
And create a real dog and pony show
But it feels like another distraction
While the Epstein files were getting traction
One day they’ll come out and we’ll say ‘there you go’
And then we’ll all dive into Lake Ontario”

Talk about going for the jugular… Adams isn’t worried about retribution, like Carney he’s standing up to the bully. Not only singing about the disaster in Iran, but the Epstein files! Which had reverberations everywhere in the world except…here. People with status lost it. They were blown out. But there’s no price to be paid by offenders south of the border.

As for diving into the lake…this is pure rock and roll, over the top, not constricted by norms, when things are insane you used to be able to play in a rock and roll band, now you just say F*CK IT and jump off the cliff.

“After centuries of trade and war
People settled down on the banks and shores
All rivalries and conflicts – had all but ceased
But it just took one dude to break that peace”

A knife to the heart. We were living in peace before this bastard came along and broke it. Canadians were our friends, but Trump nuked centuries of harmony. Wreaking economic havoc… And unlike the wimps in the rest of the world, Carney said NO MAS! And now you’ve got Bryan Adams giving the Donald the middle finger.

Now if this were 1986, the debate would be whether this was too political to air on MTV, because one thing is for sure, it would have fit perfectly into the outlet’s oeuvre, AOR, rock that hit you in the gut, the outlet had put Michael Jackson on the air, but this was before hip-hop truly made inroads, it was still rock and roll.

And “Lake Ontario” is rock and roll.

In 1966 AM radio would have eaten it up. Before all the stations were rolled up individual broadcasters took chances, and if something was a hit they were sure to play it.

But “Lake Ontario” isn’t from that tumultuous decade, it sounds just like Adams’s heyday, the aforementioned eighties. And even though shows by these artists sell out sheds, and in the case of Def Leppard stadiums, good luck getting airplay on their new material.

Then again, records are not made on radio anymore, but online.

But this is not a sound the youngsters cotton to. There’s no 808. It contains more than one chord. Actually it’s the changes that make “Lake Ontario,” Adams rediscovered the lost formula and delivered. “Lake Ontario” is not quite “Ohio,” but what is? By time we hit the seventies protest songs died with the endless Vietnam war which whimpered to an end and in the go-go eighties the boomers put on suits and raped and plundered the nation and kept most of the money when Reagan lowered taxes. Income inequality started to grow. Playing in a rock and roll band was not an option, you couldn’t make it on minimum wage so the best and the brightest didn’t even try, only the lowest common denominator made music, and they’d do whatever their handlers told them to. And screw straight from the heart, songs were written by committee, and much of the time the “artists” had no hand in the creation, and the final record was remixed ad infinitum until it fit some formula, a streamlined one that the public abandoned for TikTok and streaming TV.

And then Bryan Adams throws one straight down the middle.

Can’t you see it? The Boss is willing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others, he’s always sitting in, can you picture Bruce and Bryan slashing their guitars performing “Lake Ontario”?

This is “We Are the World” with a much better song. Do I think all the players are gonna come out to make a mass number in search of ubiquity? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Why take the risk? Trump still has believers, and they buy concert tickets too.

So, what happens now? If I was a betting man, I’d say nothing. However…

I didn’t find out about “Lake Ontario” online, but from a reader, I got an e-mail, word of mouth, the most powerful promotion, and you might still hate Bryan Adams because he was so damn successful but the people who bought all those records would eat this up, Bryan can even play it in concert and no one will go to the bathroom. “Lake Ontario” is an under three minute tear, that I have on endless repeat right now, because I love rock and roll, and I find this song much more palatable than the Active Rock drivel played fast with less than great singers.

Just listen. It starts with an explosive guitar. And Bryan’s voice has character, unlike those competing on TV. And he’s not quite sotto voce during the verses, but he drops it down for gravitas, but then there’s that change, not the greatest of all time, but still magic, and then Bryan raises his voice and the song becomes positively anthemic.

The haters will be out in force. Unless it derives from the Ramones they can’t acknowledge it. Mainstream is anathema. Like it’s easy to do this. If it were so, we’d have had a great protest song like this in the last two decades, but we haven’t.

If you picked up a guitar after seeing the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan,” if you formed groups that rehearsed in the garage, if your roots are in BANDS as opposed solo stars…

Make no mistake, this might have Bryan’s name on it, but this is positively a band effort, with all the players locked in.

UTTERLY FANTASTIC!