Bryan Adams takes on Trump over Lake Ontario in a new song

A song about a name

Bryan Adams has released a new song aimed squarely at Donald Trump. Lake Ontario, which came out on Wednesday 28 October, is the Canadian singer's response to the US president's order to rename the lake, which lies on the border between Canada and the United States, as Lake America.

Trump signed an executive order in August directing US federal agencies to use the new name, Leyland Cecco reported for The Guardian. It echoed his earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The move has largely been met with derision in Canada, where people have pointed out that the province of Ontario is named after the lake, not the other way round.

Adams's song goes back to where the name came from. The first verse tells how the Iroquois named the water, and insists that "it's a first nations name, not an executive order", Beth Simpson reported for MusicRadar. The chorus is far blunter, and suggests the renaming was a distraction from the president's other troubles, naming both the war in Iran and renewed scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

In a statement with the release, Adams said that "empires and regimes, dictators and kings, they all come and go", and that Lake Ontario is forever. He called it a song "for all the sane people on both shores" who know that the lake will always be Lake Ontario.

Leyland Cecco reported this first for The Guardian. Checked against MusicRadar: Bryan Adams slams Donald Trump in patriotic protest song.

How the row began

Trump's decision to rename the lake followed a war of words with Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Codi Wilson reported for CP24 in Toronto. Canadian officials have not recognised the change, and the prime minister, Mark Carney, has pointed out that the name Lake Ontario is older than both Canada and the United States.

The lake is the latest flashpoint in a long dispute. For much of his second term Trump has talked about absorbing Canada as the 51st US state and has imposed a series of tariffs that have come and gone, Billboard Canada reported in July. Canadians have answered with a wave of national pride, consumer boycotts of American goods and, in some regions, the removal of American spirits from the shelves.

Musicians have been part of that response on both sides of the border. Bruce Springsteen released his own protest song, Streets of Minneapolis, in January, Daniel Otis noted for CP24. And on 26 October, Neil Young sued Trump's political action committee for $10m over the use of his song Rockin' in the Free World at rallies ahead of the midterm elections, Laura Snapes reported for The Guardian. It is the second time Young has sued one of Trump's organisations over the song.

51st State and a love letter to Canada

Lake Ontario is not Adams's first shot at the White House this year. On 1 July, Canada Day, he released 51st State, a rock song that warns the president that Canadians will never join the US. "Go on load us up with tariffs, but we'll never be the 51st State," he sings. The song does not name Trump, but leaves little doubt about its target.

Adams told Gary Graff of Ultimate Classic Rock in September that 51st State was more directly political than anything he usually writes. "But why not?" he said. He played it on his summer dates in the US, including in conservative southern states, and said the reception had been better than he expected. He told The Guardian that the song had a standing ovation every night, and that it made him think "perhaps, finally, the tide's turning".

Both songs belong to a larger project. How's It Goin', which Adams describes as a love letter to Canada, is out on 6 November on his own label, BAD Records. It has 12 songs, and Lake Ontario will be added as a digital bonus track, MusicRadar reported.

The album began almost by accident. Adams told Ultimate Classic Rock that he was touring Africa when he was asked to write a song for Canada's Wild Eastern Edge, a four-part documentary series about the country's eastern provinces. He researched the region's geography and history, and with current affairs being what they are, he said, he felt he had to write something of the moment. He recorded the album over three months. He wanted to call it Songs From the Great White North, but found the title had been taken, and settled on a phrase he calls typically Canadian.

The track list, published by Louder, takes in How's It Goin', Highway 16, Diesel & Dirt, The Battle of Lundy's Lane, The Ballad of Terry Fox, 51st State, When Canada Joined Newfoundland, A Handful of Gold, Iron Ribbon, The Bridge, Canada's Wild Eastern Edge and Heave Away. The album will be released on CD, vinyl and digitally, and in a hardback book edition with a CD, lyrics and pictures connected to the songs.

The Ballad of Terry Fox

The second single from the album, The Ballad of Terry Fox, is a tribute to one of Canada's best-loved figures. Fox lost a leg to bone cancer in 1977 and in 1980 set out to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research, starting by dipping his foot in the Atlantic at St John's, Newfoundland. He covered 3,339 miles in 143 days before cancer in his lungs forced him to stop outside Thunder Bay, Ontario, on 1 September. He died the following June, Cecco wrote in a Guardian feature in September.

Adams remembers it clearly. He told Louder he was 20 years old and touring Canada in 200-capacity clubs at the time, and had just played Ottawa when Fox's run was all over the news. He said Fox gave the country someone that everyone could agree on and unite behind.

The song features in Run Terry Run, a documentary that premiered at the Toronto film festival on 19 September, and has been met with chants of "Terry! Terry!" at Adams's shows in Canada. On 3 September, Adams joined Carney on a visit to a memorial to Fox, a moment The Guardian saw as political and cultural Canada coming together around his legacy. "It deserves to be folklore," Adams said.

From Kingston to 16 weeks at Number 1

Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, on the shores of the lake he is now singing about. He is best known in Britain for (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, from the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which spent a record 16 weeks at Number 1 on the UK singles chart. In 2016 Drake came within a week of matching it, with 15 weeks at the top for One Dance, Esther Addley and Harriet Gibsone reported for The Guardian. In Canada the song spent 39 weeks at Number 1.

He wrote it with the composer Michael Kamen and the producer Mutt Lange. Adams told Dave Simpson for The Guardian in 2022 that his record company wanted to withdraw the single to focus on the album while it was at Number 1, and that he told them they would be mad to. He also recalled watching the film with his girlfriend and hearing the song play over the closing credits as people left, and wondering whether anyone had liked it.

Adams says the hit renewed interest in his older songs, and that shortly afterwards Summer of '69 went to Number 1 in the Netherlands, ten years after it first came out. Reviewing his show at The O2 in London in 2022, Stevie Chick wrote for The Guardian that Adams is at heart a pop craftsman, and that Summer of '69 was his finest song of the night. Adams released his 16th studio album, Roll With the Punches, in August 2025.

Las Vegas, then Europe

Adams is ending a five-night residency at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas this week, and then returns to Europe in November, according to Ultimate Classic Rock and CP24. Our listings show a run through Spain and Portugal, starting in Murcia on 6 November and taking in Zaragoza, Valencia, Madrid, Barakaldo, Barcelona, A Coruña, two nights in Porto and two at the MEO Arena in Lisbon on 20 and 21 November.

The tour then moves to Geneva and Zurich in late November and on to Copenhagen, Herning, Gliwice, Prague, Graz and Budapest in December. A further leg in 2027 takes in Gothenburg, Oslo and Helsinki in May, Germany in June and August, and more Spanish dates in August. No UK dates have been announced.

Prices we are tracking

We track the European dates on StubHub. At 9.25am UK time on Friday 30 October, the cheapest ticket for Barakaldo on 13 November was about £69.46, charged in euros, the lowest we have seen for that show in 30 days and down from £249.10 on 12 October. Barcelona on 14 November was about £80.14 and Madrid on 10 November about £83.60, down from £100.49 on 27 October. All of these are listing prices, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout.

In Lisbon, the second night on 21 November was about £97.95, against £240.66 on 20 October, while the first night was about £152. Budapest on 16 December was at £98.66, its lowest in 30 days and down from £274.44 on 22 October, and Prague on 13 December was at £101.33. Zurich was the dearest of the dates we checked, at £403.56. All of these are listing prices, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout.

For 2027, Gothenburg on 2 May was at £89.78, close to its low of £85.75, and Wiesbaden on 23 June was at £118.47, its lowest since we began tracking. Oslo on 3 May had gone the other way, to £322.66 from a low of £108.24. Where a show is priced in euros or another currency, the sterling figure is approximate. All of these are listing prices, plus StubHub booking fees at checkout.

The cheapest price on resale is a single listing, so it can move quickly as seats are listed and taken down. The live prices for each date print below this story and are checked hourly, and you can set an alert on any of them to get an email when the cheapest price for your date falls.

Tickets today

What StubHub lists now, checked hourly. Prices are listing prices; StubHub adds its booking fees at checkout.