Every musician should react to Donald Trump like Jack White
Every musician should be doing this! If your music is being used by Donald Trump and you don’t support him? Go ahead and threaten to sue. Please, I am begging you to do it. Because Trump is going to use music he thinks will make him cool.
For whatever reason, Donald Trump refuses to recognize that he needs to ask musicians before using their songs at his rallies and speeches. Instead, he continues to get embarrassed by bands and artists all going online and saying “No, he’s not allowed to use that” to some degree. The Foo Fighters just did it and now Jack White is making it very clear that the Trump campaign cannot use his songs.
A video was posted by Margo Martin, Trump’s Director of Communications that featured the president hobbling up the stairs to a plane as “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes plays. The video barely makes sense because it is a) just the guitar/drumline from the beginning of the song and b) Trump is out of breath by the end. But still, they posted it anyway, and now they have Jack White mad at them.
The rockstar is not afraid to share his opinions and he took to social media to make it clear that he is not going to let the Trump campaign use his music for their videos. “Oh….Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.) Have a great day at work today Margo Martin,” White began on Instagram. “And as long as I’m here, a double fuck you DonOLD for insulting our nation’s veterans at Arlington you scum. You should lose every military family’s vote immediately from that if ANYTHING makes sense anymore.”
You cannot convince me that Trump knows what the song is about
The song is known for its iconic guitar line, which is, technically, what Trump and his campaign used. But the song itself is about gossip. With Trump’s entire “fake news” push, it is a funny choice of song for his campaign, but it makes it so much better now that they wasted their one chance at using it on a bad YouTube video.
More artists should do this. They have the rights to their music and can say who can and cannot use it, so why not push back against people like Trump using their songs for his messaging? Luckily, I can happy listen to “Seven Nation Army,” unlike Donald Trump and his staff.
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