When Trump’s rally music is appropriate for all the wrong reasons

SOS. The ship is going down. Send help.

Was the Trump campaign signaling to be saved when it played a video clip of the theme song from the 1997 film “Titanic” Friday at rally for the Republican nominee in Montana? Maybe, but Celine Dion wasn’t about to throw them a life preserver.

The singer’s management team and record label instead responded to the former president’s use of her hit, “My Heart Will Go On” with this statement: “In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use. …And really, THAT song?”

Picking a ballad associated with one of the worst maritime disasters ever wasn’t a wise choice for a campaign that’s been taking on water since President Biden stepped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in. New polling shows Harris ahead of Trump by 4 percentage points in the key swing states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, flipping the narrative from the past few months.

Politicians using pop songs out of context is a given during campaign season, but Republicans seem to have a knack for selecting music that’s totally inappropriate for the moment. Incumbent George W. Bush adopted Orleans “Still the One” which begins with, “We’ve been together since way back when / Sometimes I never want to see you again.” Did he express the quiet part out loud?

Then there’s the truly appropriate music selection, but not in the way the campaign planned.

Ronald Reagan famously tried to align himself with Bruce Springsteen in 1984 when he waxed patriotic about The Boss’ lyrics: “America’s future rests … in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire, New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.” “Born in the U.S.A.” did chronicle the dreams of the working class — as they were being dashed by years of Washington war mongering and new policies such as Reagan’s trickle down economics.

The song’s narrator, a Vietnam veteran, recalls his military service: Got in a little hometown jam / So they put a rifle in my hand / Sent me off to a foreign land / To go and kill the yellow man.

Not quite morning in America. But it was one of the more notable examples of a misused piece of music highlighting the irony around a candidate’s claims.

Trump’s team also took up the song, also to Springsteen’s displeasure. Apparently like Reagan’s crew, they only listened to the refrain “Born in the U.S.A.” (Trump once claimed he got bigger crowds than Springsteen, but that’s another story about an insecure man obsessed with size.)

In 2015, Trump kicked off his candidacy to the tune of R.E.M.’s prophetic “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” There couldn’t have been a better soundtrack to the beginning of the end for elections and politics as we understood them, but hey, he felt fine. R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, however, was not fine, posting later that “we do not condone the use of our music by this fraud and con man.”

The Trump/Pence ticket used the Rolling Stone’s “You Can’t Always Get What you Want” at rallies and events headed into both the 2016 and 2020 elections. It seemed hilarious at the time. But the song would later become a theme for the majority who voted for Hilary Clinton in 2016, but still ended up with Trump thanks to the electoral college vote.

In September 2020, President Trump walked off Air Force One in Michigan to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s dig at draft-dodging rich kids, “Fortunate Son.” The 1969 protest song focuses on class inequity during the Vietnam War, with John Fogerty singing about a “millionaire’s son” born with a “silver spoon in hand” dodging service in the military while others are sent to fight and die. The song was a fitting soundtrack for Trump, but probably not in the way his team intended. It drew attention to his draft-dodging record of five deferments at the height of the Vietnam War. Oops.

During the 2024 Republican National Convention last month, the former president walked out to James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.” It’s hard to imagine what the organizers were thinking with that choice given that women’s reproductive rights were decimated with the repeal of Roe vs. Wade thanks to three justices Trump appointed. There’s also the former president’s track record with women, including being held liable for sexual assault and the awful things he says he “can get away with” because he’s famous.

Like R.E.M.’s Stipe, artist after artist has warned the MAGA machine to stop using their songs at rallies and events. The aggrieved include Adele, Neil Young, Aerosmith and The Smiths. The latest cease and desist comes from the estate of the late, great Issac Hayes. His family on Sunday posted a legal complaint on X demanding that Trump stop using “Hold On (I’m Coming).” They said if they don’t get satisfaction by Aug. 16, they’ll sue.

But sometimes, pop culture takes it’s revenge on those who don’t bother to understand its nuance.

When Trump toured an N95 mask manufacturing facility in Arizona it was 2020. COVID 19 was claiming thousands of lives and much of the country was on lockdown. He, however, was not wearing a face mask. The music blasting out of the company’s loudspeakers? Guns N’ Roses “Live and Let Die.”