Springsteen & Bon Jovi: The Billionaire Hucksters of Hypocritical Virtue Signals.
Blech! Bruce Springsteen—the so-called “Boss” of blue-collar anthems. He’s spent fifty years strumming his way into the hearts of New Jersey’s working stiffs while dodging taxes like a greased pig (pork roll egg and cheese) at a county fair. This guy has built a global empire on songs that pretend to champion the factory worker and the down-on-his-luck mechanic. But let’s be real: he’s just another limousine liberal laughing all the way to the bank, counting his $500 million catalog sale while singing about “empty pockets.”
And don’t get me started on his sidekick, Jon Bon Jovi. These two share that inexplicable Jersey fame that only appeals to two groups: drunk girls screaming lyrics at dive bars and simple guys who spend their weekends shining their dashboards with Armor-All, hanging pine-scented air fresheners like badges of honor. It’s a cultural mystery, like why anyone would pay property taxes in a state that’s essentially a giant tollbooth with bad traffic.
But here’s the kicker: both Springsteen and Bon Jovi are masterclass property tax dodgers. They exploit loopholes that would make Leona Helmsley look like she gets her taxes done at H&R Block.
Springsteen owns hundreds of acres in mega-taxed Colts Neck, where he leases the land to an organic farmer just to get a 98% “Farmland Assessment” tax break. Legal? Sure. But when you’re preaching about the “struggle” from the back of a chauffeured SUV, it smells like the aforementioned pork roll (Taylor ham) egg and cheese with SPK on a hard roll. Oh, yeah that pork roll thing is a Jersey thing… in case you didn’t know.
Be-wigged Bon Jovi is no better. He’s got his own “farm” setup where he reportedly raised honeybees just to hit the state’s measly $1,000 agricultural income requirement. A few jars of honey don’t make you a farmer; they make you a botulism broker (never feed honey to an infant – look that up) with a sweet tax shelter. While the average Joe in the Garden State is getting squeezed for every dime trying to own the perfect New Jersey home with that Home Depot glow, these two are raking in billions and gaming the system to avoid paying their fair share to the State they claim to love.
Talent? Please. Springsteen’s catalog is a monotonous drone of gravelly vocals and recycled riffs that glorify “Pretty Boy Floyd”—a bank-robbing thug who went looking for trouble and found it in a hail of bullets. Springsteen laps up that outlaw nonsense, weaving it into a “working man” schtick that is now sold to the highest bidder. He spent his time preaching about “The Middle” in a Jeep commercial while wearing a designer jacket that costs more than a plumber’s monthly mortgage. And let’s not forget the $5,000 “dynamic pricing” tickets for his recent tour. Apparently, the “working man” is welcome at the show—as long as he sells his kidney to pay for a seat in the nosebleeds.
Think about it: Springsteen’s “Born to Run” fantasies are for dreamers who never leave the barstool, while Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” is cowboy cosplay from a guy who’s never saddled a horse. Just when you thought the pandering had peaked, the “Boss” serves up “Streets of Minneapolis,” a track so heavy with cringe-inducing virtue signaling it’s a wonder the vinyl doesn’t crack under the weight of its own self-importance. It’s the ultimate billionaire’s lullaby—Bruce moaning about social justice from the safe distance of his gated Colts Neck fortress. He’s traded in his “Born to Run” edge for a “Born to Preach” sermon that nobody asked for, proving once again that there’s no tragedy he won’t co-opt to remind us all how deeply he “cares.” It’s not a song; it’s a self-indulgent press release set to a recycled three-chord drone.
These Jersey icons aren’t heroes; they’re hustlers in denim, using nostalgia and faux-populism to line their pockets. They parade as voices for the forgotten, but their “farms” are gated estates where the only labor is hired help. Meanwhile, real working folks in Trenton or Newark grind away, paying full freight on crumbling row homes.
If they truly cared about the “little guy,” they’d stop lecturing us from their tax-sheltered orchards, pay their full freight, and shut up. But no, they keep the charade going, treating their fans like ATMs for their billionaire lifestyles. Their fans—those dashboard-shining, air-freshener-hanging simpletons—deserve better than being props in a billionaire’s ballad.
Time to wake up, Jersey: the Boss isn’t your friend; he’s your fleece artist.
Proverbs 13:7 (KJV)
“There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.”
This verse perfectly captures the Springsteen paradox: a man who has hoarded half a billion dollars in “great riches” from a global conglomerate yet spends every waking hour “making himself poor” in song, donning the spiritual costume of a broke vagabond to sell high-priced tickets to the very people he’s mimicking.
LET US PRAY:
Lord, look down upon the lost souls of the Jersey Turnpike, those faithful simpletons who believe a $5,000 ticket is a tithe to the working man. Grant them mercy as they scrub their dashboards with Armor-All, and may their Little Trees pine-scented air fresheners never lose their chemical zest in the heat of a July traffic jam.
Deliver them from the gravelly sermons of tax-shielded billionaires and the honey-glazed lies of part-time beekeepers. Bless their calloused hands, their townhouses off of Route 9 and their inexplicable devotion to Taylor Ham. Keep their tires inflated and their hearts shielded from the virtue-signaling drones of Minneapolis, for they know not that their “Boss” is just a landlord in a vintage jacket.
