Barbra Streisand Couldn’t Care Less About Turning Trump Fans Off With Her New Anti-Trump Album ‘Walls’
Legendary singer Barbra Streisand doesn’t care if a number of people, including a plethora of fans, get turned off with her new anti-Trump album, Walls, according to the New York Times.
In a wide-ranging interview with the publication, Streisand talked about her album as the midterms, which could potentially decide the next course in American national politics, loom. The “Evergreen” singer, known for being openly Democratic and anti-Trump, said that she had been hurt by the way American discourse had been allowed to be “defiled” by Trump.
Admitting that she was an American citizen first and then an artist, Streisand said that she felt it her duty to come out with a political album. “Truth has always worked for me, so to see the truth defiled every day is very, very painful for me. I only can do what I can do. I probably will turn a lot of people off,” the singer said.
“I can only be true to me as an artist and if people like it that’s great, and if they don’t, they don’t have to buy it or listen to it. But me in real life is more important than me as the artist. As a citizen, that’s the role.”
Barbra Streisand is fired up on political new album https://t.co/IOJ2XaOx19 pic.twitter.com/Cp0xi8fxsk
— New York Post (@nypost) November 1, 2018
It appears that Streisand has already hit the nerve of Trump supporters, with Fox News commentators urging her to leave the U.S. for Canada in the event of Democrats losing the midterms. Streisand has earlier considered moving to Canada because of Trump’s ascension to power.
One of the songs of her new album, “Don’t Lie to Me,” in which the singer addresses Trumpian falsehoods, was released Friday. When asked why she had become political so late in her career, Streisand said that Trump’s outrages led to sleepless nights for her and that eventually, she realized the time was ripe for her to speak her mind.
“I would lie awake at night with Trump’s outrages running through my head, and I had to do another album for Columbia Records, so I thought, why not make an album about what’s on my mind? And that became the title of the first song,” she said.
Streisand said that Trump’s fans not liking her new album doesn’t bother her. She said that she hopes her music can transcend political divisions and she spoke of being hopeful after she saw a number of Republicans at a recent concert applaud her for getting political.
Ultimately, Streisand also gave her views on A Star Is Born, a remake of a 1976 movie in which she starred.
“I was surprised by how similar it was to my version. I loved how he used the drag bar. I thought that was new and interesting,” Streisand said. “What I’ve seen of the film I really liked.”
