I can’t pretend to understand the appeal of Donald Trump, but it seems to have something to do with strut, aggression, bluster and unfiltered masculinity. If shots of the former US president at the food trough are any guide, it also has to do with processed meat.
Little in Trump’s demeanour suggests a fellow who enjoys hanging wanly about the graveyards of Manchester with an Oscar Wilde volume curled in the pocket of his second-hand corduroy jacket. It seems unlikely, at Thanksgiving, that the young Don ever dabbed away a tear and wailed, “That turkey you festively slice is MURDER!”
If there is one insult that most irritates Trump it is being called a loser. How odd, then, that his latest cultural clash is with the patron saints of loserdom. This week, Johnny Marr, former guitarist of The Smiths, fumed after learning that his tunes were being played before a Trumpian gathering. No surprise there. Marr is a reasonable fellow. What fascinates is the Maga hierarchy wanting these hymns to misery – celebrations of sensitivity – echoing around their megadomes. One could maybe understand them blasting The Queen Is Dead after the defeat of Nikki Haley in New Hampshire. That’s about it.
The current controversy results from the playing of Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want at a Trump rally in South Dakota. One struggles to name a more creatively pathetic Smiths number (and that’s saying something). Clocking in at a nippy one minute and 50 seconds, the waltz-time song, originally released as the B-side of William, It Was Really Nothing, begins with a confession no politician would willingly make.
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“Good times for a change. See, the luck I’ve had can make a good man turn bad,” Morrissey warbles. We get the title as a chorus. Then a variation on the first verse: “Haven’t had a dream in a long time. See, the life I’ve had can make a good man bad.” A bit more “let me get what I want” followed by a plaintive “Lord knows, it would be the first time.” That’s it – 82 words, most of them repeated.
On reflection, there are connections between Trump’s speeches and Morrissey’s lyrical style. Both are much at home to bellyaching. The president’s notorious inauguration address, in 2017, was a catalogue of complaint. It featured, however, more apocalyptic bluster than the rainy Mancunian dirges usually deliver. More Black Sabbath than The Smiths. “The American carnage stops right here, right now!” he yelled to much empty space. We know Trump wants to be president again. But “please” is not in his vocabulary. “Let me” is far too polite. The title under discussion would, in Trumpese, translate as “Give me what I want, you total losers!”
Anyway, Marr wasn’t having it. “I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass,” he wrote above a video of the South Dakota rally. “Consider this shit shut right down right now.”
He may or may not, ahem, get what he wants. Fellow musicians such as Elton John, Queen and Bruce Springsteen have objected to their music being played at Trump events. Four years ago The Rolling Stones announced that they were “working with the music rights organisation BMI to stop the use of their material in Trump’s re-election campaign”. Tom Petty’s estate issued a cease and desist for the same reason.
The most famous incident from the pre-Trump era involved Springsteen’s Born in the USA. “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside our hearts,” Ronald Reagan said in 1984. “It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen.” Neither the president nor his people seemed aware that the song expressed the bitter disappointments of an often unemployed Vietnam veteran. At the start of Trump’s first campaign – as Neil Young took issue with the still implausible candidate’s use of Rockin’ in the Free World – Rolling Stone magazine listed 35 examples of artists objecting to politicians playing their tunes. Jackson Browne vs John McCain. Journey vs Newt Gingrich. Sam (of Sam and Dave) vs Barack Obama. And on and on.
It seems it is not so simple for artists to prohibit the use of their music. An academic article from 2017 by a lawyer named Danwill D Schwender – wryly titled The Copyright Conflict between Musicians and Political Campaigns Spins Around Again – noted that “political campaigns have grown smarter and tend to purchase a copyright license to use songs”. If Marr does fail to stop the Maga masses from playing Smiths weepalongs he could, perhaps, suggest a few suitable titles. Bigmouth Strikes Again would work. Miserable Lie sounds about right. What about Sweet and Tender Hooligan or This Joke isn’t Funny Anymore?
We could play this game all night.
