Pimp of the Nation, meet Kid Rock. His, uh, ‘music’ is perfect for your rallies | Opinion
Among the many challenging jobs in the Donald Trump re-election campaign is picking out music for his rallies — or what’s left of his rallies.
For years, Trump’s staff has preferred to use popular songs without asking permission from the artists, since most of the artists that Trump likes would say No — and, in fact, have said No. Repeatedly.
At last month’s rally at a Tulsa auditorium, Trump organizers once again played “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” by the Rolling Stones.
Mick Jagger has described the campaign’s choice of that number as “kind of weird” because it’s about dazed drug users. Four years ago, the band complained about that song — and “Start Me Up” — being played at Trump rallies, but Trump’s minions either forgot, or just didn’t care.
So on June 28, barely a week after the Tulsa rally, the Stones announced they will sue Trump if the campaign continues using any of the group’s music. It was an embarrassing footnote to a night that had already embarrassed the president because of sparse attendance and blowback from the lax coronavirus precautions.
Worse, the Stones’ legal threat came only days after the estate of the late, great Tom Petty sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Trump campaign after it had played “I Won’t Back Down” at the same Oklahoma rally.
On Twitter, the Petty family said that Tom “would not want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together. . . . We would hate for fans that are marginalized by this administration to think we were complicit in this usage.”
Boom.
It’s not as if the Trump campaign doesn’t have plenty of music to choose from. BMI, the music-rights organization, lists about 15 million songs that can be played at political events with no licensing issues. Artists can remove their material from that catalog, which is what the Stones and Petty’s estate have done.
The Trump campaign has a knack for picking set lists that enrage the musicians. Among those who have blasted Trump for using their songs are Elton John, REM, Pharrell, Queen, Ozzy Osbourne, Guns N’ Roses, Rihanna, REM, Aerosmith and the estate of Prince, who 30 years ago actually wrote a song about Trump called “Donald Trump (The Black Version).”
After “Here Comes the Sun” was played at the 2016 Republican Convention, George Harrison’s estate said the use of the song was “unauthorized” and “offensive,” adding:
“If it had been ‘Beware of Darkness,’ then we MAY have approved it!” an arch reference to one of the former Beatle’s other hits.
Unfortunately for Trump’s campaign DJs, many Rock-and-Roll Hall of Famers aren’t fans. Bruce Springsteen has called the president “dangerous” and “deeply damaged.” Similar sentiments have been expressed by Bono, David Crosby, Roger Waters, Paul McCartney and others.
Not all the misgivings are due to political differences. Long before Trump ran for president, Keith Richards famously pulled a knife and stuck it into a table because he was angry about Trump’s involvement in a Stones concert in Atlantic City.
Perhaps nobody has been more incensed, and frustrated, by Trump’s pirating of his songs than the legendary Neil Young, who this year became a U.S. citizen. For a long time Young has been asking Trump’s political team to stop blaring “Rockin’ in the Free World” at campaign events. Finally Young had enough. In February he posted an open letter to the president calling him a “disgrace,” and saying, “Every time ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ or one of my songs is played at your rallies, I hope you hear my voice. Remember it is the voice of a taxpaying U.S. citizen who does not support you. Me.”
Boom again.
This is not to suggest that Trump can’t find any big-time musicians who like him. Kid Rock, for example, has played golf with the president and even visited the White House. He says Trump is “cool.”
Kid Rock has recorded tons of songs — rock, country and rap — and he’d probably be thrilled to provide the entire sound track for the next MAGA rally.
Trump could kick off the evening with a hit like “American Bad Ass,” and then crank it up for more nuanced selections from Kid Rock’s diverse archive — say, “World Class Sex Rhymes,” or “Wax the Booty.”
And, for the big Trump finale: “Pimp of the Nation,” the lyrics of which are basically unprintable except for the words “pimp of the nation.”
With songs like that booming patriotically from the rafters, who needs Neil Young or Tom Petty?
Rock on, Mr. President, you cool old booty waxer.
This story was originally published July 3, 2020 at 1:00 PM.