Artist News

Neil Young tries to trump Trump from trumpeting with his song

By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 17 June 2015

The US presidential race has barely even got going and already a musician is complaining about their music being used by a politician without their permission. Actually, this relates to Donald Trump, who I’m not sure you can really call a politician, no matter what he claims.

The billionaire businessman, golfer and hair tamer Trump yesterday announced his intention to stand to be the next president of the United States Of America. Because if Boris Johnson can be mayor of London and Arnold Schwarzenegger can be governor of California, Trump running a whole country is the next ridiculous step in the downfall of mankind.

Anyway, before announcing his plans to bring the American Dream back from the dead, Trump played ‘Rockin In The Free World’ by Neil Young. And, hey, it turns out that Neil Young isn’t a fan of Donald Trump. Who could have guessed?

In a statement, Young’s management company Lookout Management said this morning: “Donald Trump was not authorised to use ‘Rockin In The Free World’ in his presidential candidacy announcement. Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America”.

Sadly for Young, Trump doesn’t need specific authorisation to use music at his rallies providing the venue has the right public performance licences from the US collecting societies. However, given how sensitive artists are when their music is used by politicians, it would have been polite to at least ask. Though presumably even the chronically deluded Trump is aware that there aren’t many credible musicians out there who would support him with a tune.