The new Bon Jovi album, 2020, is the most socially conscious collection of songs that the New Jersey superstars have ever released. Tackling issues such as gun control (Lower The Flag), the Black Lives Matter protests (American Reckoning) and the struggles of migrants (Blood In The Water), it’s an album rooted in contemporary realities, and while frontman Jon Bon Jovi insists that he’s “not here to preach my view of the world”, in a new interview with GQ, the singer admits that Blood In The Water “is directed at the administration, for sure.”
The song’s opening verse runs: “A storm is coming / Let me be clear / Your days are numbered / The end is near” while a later verse reads “I hear your shadow sold your secrets / And he's gonna do some time / They say the noose fits like a necktie / Sir, you're gonna fit right in.”
Explaining the lyric Bon Jovi tells GQ: “It starts off with ‘A storm is coming’ – Stormi Daniels. ‘Your shadow sold your secrets and he’s about to do some time’ – Michael Cohen. That’s what this was all written about. Now there’s blood in the water, a year later, or two months ago, you could say that it was the impeachment.”
“I’m heartbroken by the divide [in America] and wish that we lived in more of a ‘we’ society than a ‘me’ society,” Bon Jovi continues. “In the same breath, I understand why Donald Trump was elected, because of the voice of the voiceless that were overlooked that wanted to be heard and certainly deserved to be heard, so they have spoken up, and if they choose to elect that president again it will be the voice of the people, granted it’s a true and fair election.”
Bon Jovi supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election against Donald Trump and performed earlier this year at a benefit for Joe Biden held by New Jersey governor Phil Murphy but says “whether I’m at a rally offstage is my business, I’m just another citizen with that right.”
“I never used the stage to discuss my political beliefs,” he notes, “because even my stage is divided, let alone my audience.”
Bon Jovi’s 2020 album is out now on Island.
