Sinéad O’Connor’s estate joins list of artists to hit Donald Trump with a cease and desist
Sinéad O’Connor is the latest in a long list of artists, living and dead, who want Trump to stop using their songs
Music News Donald Trump
There are various, sundry ways that former President Donald Trump has demonstrated his utter shamelessness. One example from the pop culture corner is how he’s perfectly willing to appropriate the music of artists who hate his guts at his fascist little rallies. This example is a large umbrella under which more than a dozen musicians fall, most recently the late Sinéad O’Connor. Apparently Trump has been using her cover “Nothing Compares 2 U” at his campaign events (which is a weird choice for a political rally, except that it would be kind of ego-flattering?), and given O’Connor’s entire deal, her estate is obviously not going to let the affront stand.
“Throughout her life, it is well known that Sinéad O’Connor lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness, and decency towards her fellow human beings,” reads a joint statement from O’Connor’s estate and her record label Chrysalis Records (via The Guardian). “It was with outrage therefore that we learned that Donald Trump has been using her iconic performance of Nothing Compares 2 U at his political rallies. It is no exaggeration to say that Sinéad would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil’. As the guardians of her legacy, we demand that Donald Trump and his associates desist from using her music immediately.”
Besides being opposed politically to Donald Trump in basically every way while she was alive, O’Connor did speak out against him on multiple occasions. Elaborating on calling him the “biblical devil” to Hot Press, she told the outlet, “I know this may sound extreme—I don’t really give a flying fuck what everyone else thinks—but I am convinced the man is actually a Satanist. I’m convinced of it. Klansmen were Satanists, it’s a satanic organization. Whatever form it may exist in now, I don’t know and I don’t want to know, but its origins were satanic. All its rituals, everything about it. These people do exist. They’re butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. So why not the President of the United States of America?” Per The Sun, in 2020, she tweeted that she hoped the coronavirus “takes him.”
At this point, the list of artists who have told Trump to stop using their songs is so illustrious that there’s a whole-ass Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject, so O’Connor is in good company. Here’s the full list so far, if you want to take a trip down memory lane…
44 Comments
Scumbag who never pays for anything stealing again? No surprise.
Can’t figure out if you like him or hate him?🤣🤣
Trump’s like Duke Phillips without all that charisma baggage.
All hail Duke! Duke gives life!
Trump just need to get Kid Rock to record a version for him:Nothing Compares 2 Coup
Trumpy-said-the-Trumpy-said-up-jump-the-Trumpy!
Man who believes he’s is above the law and more important that American and Jesus combined doesn’t pay for music licenses?Shocking.
That’s not how this works. When songs are played at live events it’s the responsibility of the venue to handle licensing costs (I would guess some don’t bother, but probably many do). Not the politician or whoever is putting on the event. Licensing is handled in almost all cases through a service—there’s a website and everything, look up songfile.com—so that the onerous process of figuring out who to ask and then sending a letter/email/whatever doesn’t enter into it and slow everything down. The rights holders (almost always big companies, rarely the actual artists) want this process to be as automatic and easy as possible so they can rake in money off their property. If Trump threw a rally and wanted to play this song, the place the rally was held would take care of the (probably near-negligible) licensing fee and blammo, he has the legal right to play the song. Sinead’s estate finding it objectionable for political reasons is perfectly understandable, and also, arguably, beside the point. Lots of artists have gone down this road, and the reason they keep making a big stink about it in the media is that they have little other recourse in most cases. It’s basically applying public pressure/shame to get the politician to discontinue using a particular song, because there is no legal action available other than vaguely threatening letters from lawyers who likely would not follow up in court.
Thank you for the injection of truth.
Don’t you have to head over to the Rust thread for some of your expert commentary on criminal and civil law as well as movie production and firearm safety?
“It’s basically applying public pressure/shame to get the politician to discontinue using a particular song”And right there is why it doesn’t work with Trump. The man has no shame.
Isn’t it also like a blanket rights thing? Like a venue pays one fee for the rights to a licensing company to use every song in their giant catalog. It is not like a hockey arena is writing a cheque to Freddie Mercury’s estate every time they play We Will Rock You. That wouldn’t work for anyone.
Plenty of the artists (or their estates) listed here own their publishing, and in many cases their masters.
Why should he? Nobody ever punishes him for it.
Truth.
He’s the living embodiment of “it’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” though I guess he doesn’t do much forgiveness-seeking either.
I wonder if Trump just looks at all this as free publicity. When Sinead O’Conner says she thinks Trump is the Devil and the Klan is Satanic, she probably was absolutely serious. As a convert to Islam she certainly believed in both Satan and Satanism.
The fact these bigots have used ‘YMCA’ at their events gives some sense of their lack of self-awareness / idiocy, but it is also damn funny.If you have a strong stomach, you can catch a Youtube clip of Trump (the front half of a centaur) ‘dancing’ to the song at several events. At any other point in history, this stuff would have been a career-ending moment, but…here we are.https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/research/spotlight-research/why-donald-trump-dancing-ymca
Cultural illiteracy seems to be a persistent trait with conservatives. Whether it’s completely missing the point of Born in the USA, to getting angry that Start Trek is “woke” (which is and has been the mission statement of the series since Rodenberry created it 60 years ago), to consistently failing to understand the “punch up/punch down” laws of comedy physics, Republican voters are basically a high school English teacher’s worst nightmare.
Star Trek got Roddenberry accused of being a freaking communist in the 60s, and still conservatives just don’t see it.
Cultural illiteracy, historical illiteracy, illiteracy illiteracy – veneration of illiteracy and of ignorance is right out front with conservatives. Why do you think they’ve been destroying public education from within for the past 45 years or so? It’s right out front with them, going all the way back to Adam and Eve, where consumption of knowledge was the big, original bad.
The whole point of conservativism is to be deliberately culturally-illiterate. It’s about preserving a cultural mode that, by definition, no longer exists.
Well, that particular tone-deafness has been going on since Reagan thought “Born In The USA” was some sort of endorsement of himself.
Somewhere there’s footage of Bob Hope dancing to “In The Navy”, WITH the Village People, ON the deck of an aircraft carrier. It was from one of Hope’s TV specials, and I THINK it was one of his USO shows. That gave me such a thrill when I saw it at 12 or 13.
The response from George Harrison’s estate is still my favorite.
What was it?
It’s on the relevant slide, but to make it easy for you:
“The unauthorized use of #HereComestheSun at the #RNCinCLE is offensive & against the wishes of the George Harrison estate. If it had been ‘Beware Of Darkness,’ then we MAY have approved it! #TrumpYourself.”
Almost the same as the response from Leonard Cohen’s estate.
Any word from the Prince estate, I wonder?
I went to the doctor n’ guess what he told me, guess what he told me?
He said “That shade of orange isn’t natural or healthy”, but he’s a fool.
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant; but I prefer having Burger King brought to me so I don’t have to move or nothin’.
Beautifully done.
👎🏻
Why not ask Ted fucking Nugent? Or one of those fucking country stars? They’ll do it for you.This made my day. I love it. This whole quote, he’s old enough to know how to be circumspect and reasonable, especially since he’s not an American anyway so the election doesn’t really involve him, and he’s also old enough to know he can just say “fuck it/fuck them”, all in the same breath even.
out of the songs in the world? Is it because they want some Wine Mom who is too drunk to go out dance in the party? He wants to ban porn, and also ban muslims into the country, he also wants to harasse students who go into schools for papers, and he wants to have journalists into prison…. what says “Nothing compares 2 u” about that? Some sort of longing for abuse? Some sort of sedated state, that “he made it right.” As majority the world was screaming no.
What, Ted Nugent and Kid Rock don’t have any songs the Orange one likes?
Everything else aside… In 2023, Willis’ wife and the band’s manager Karen Willis The lead singer from the Village People is married to a woman? Now that surprises me.
That was my takeaway from the whole article as well. But hey, we contain multitudes.
Willis used to be married to Phylicia Rashad (before Rashad).
At this point I just assume the song choices are a deliberate ploy just to elicit “stop using my work” responses, which is perfect fuel to throw into the big ‘ol “ownin the libtards” bonfire that makes his base so slavishly happy.
Not sure how that would work.
I thought the Satanists were the liberal “do no harm” lot?
Huh?