OF NOTE: Donald’ Trump’s odd relationships with pop stars
From Elton John to Eminem to Peggy Lee
President Donald Trump is no stranger to making statements that leave his crowds cheering and everyone else puzzled. He continued that trend on July 5 when he told a crowd in Montana, “I have broken more Elton John records. He seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No, we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record.”
It’s unclear what that means, if anything. But it’s in line with his interest in Sir Elton John, and popular music in general — even if the musicians he likes don’t always return his affections. Here are some of Trump’s more interesting dalliances with pop music.
Elton John: Though he was inexplicably bragging about breaking records set by an award-winning musician, Trump has said he is a fan of the “Benny & the Jets” singer. In his 2004 book “Think Like a Billionaire,” Trump listed John alongside Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett as his favorites.
“I never get tired of listening to them and probably never will,” Trump wrote. “Any album by any of them is bound to be fantastic.”
He famously co-opted the title of John’s song about a lonely astronaut into a nickname for Kim Jong Un, repeatedly calling the North Korean dictator “Rocket Man.”
Trump’s relationship with John goes deeper — he often blared “Tiny Dancer” at his campaign rallies. He also showered John and his now-husband David Furnish with congratulations when they entered a civil partnership.
“I know both of them and they get along wonderfully. It’s a marriage that’s going to work,” Trump, writing as the chairman of Trump University, blogged in 2005. “I’m very happy for them. If two people dig each other, they dig each other.”
For his part, John has remained relatively quiet about Trump — at least by celebrity standards. But he did say in 2016 that he wished Trump wouldn’t use his music at rallies.
“I don’t really want my music to be involved in anything to do with an American election campaign,” he told the Guardian. “I’m British. I’ve met Donald Trump, he was very nice to me, it’s nothing personal, his political views are his own, mine are very different, I’m not a Republican in a million years. Why not ask Ted ... Nugent? Or one of those ... country stars? They’ll do it for you.”
The Rolling Stones (and Neil Young and R.E.M. and Adele and Queen and more):
John wasn’t the only one who wasn’t thrilled about Trump using his music on the campaign trail. The Rolling Stones thought it was a decidedly un-rockand-roll move when he blasted the band’s raunchy hit “Start Me Up” in Trump Tower to introduce his victory speech after winning the Indiana primary in May 2016.
“The Rolling Stones have never given permission to the Trump campaign to use their songs and have requested that they cease all use immediately,” the band said in a statement.
It was the latest in a string of musicians blasting the then-presidential candidate for using their tunes to pump up a crowd. Canadian rocker/Bernie Sanders supporter/bowler hat connoisseur Neil Young was furious when Trump used his “Rockin’ in the Free World” at campaign events.
“... Had I been asked to allow my music to be used for a candidate — I would have said no,” Young wrote on Facebook. He later posted in all-caps: “YOUNG CONTINUES TO DENY TRUMP PERMISSION TO USE HIS MUSIC.”
R.E.M. had similar words for Trump when he used “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” at a rally. “Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign,” frontman Michael Stipe said.
Adele, Queen, the estate of George Harrison, Steven Tyler, Twisted Sister and more all demanded Trump not use their music at campaign rallies.
Eminem: Trump enjoys Eminem, as he bluntly stated in “Think Like a Billionaire,” in which he wrote, “And by the way, I also love Eminem.”
Eminem does not enjoy Trump.
Rather than release a statement like the rest of these songsters, Eminem recorded and released a four-minute freestyle rap called “The Storm,” an utter dismantling of the president, which he debuted at the televised BET awards in October. In it, he called Trump a “racist grandpa,” and rapped: “This is his form of distraction/Plus, he gets an enormous reaction/When he attacks the NFL, so we focus on that/Instead of talking about Puerto Rico or gun reform for Nevada/ All of these horrible tragedies, and he’s bored and would rather cause a Twitter storm with the Packers.”
The rap resonated with many people, leading some to (cheekily) suggest one Marshall Mathers should helm the country.
Lady Gaga: Trump appears to think that he is somewhat responsible for Lady Gaga’s success — to her chagrin.
“I own the Miss Universe Pageant and have made it very, very successful. One day my people came to me and told me about a young woman they called Lady Gaga, who nobody had ever heard of. We put her on as the entertainer in the middle of the pageant, which is broadcast internationally. I thought, ‘Wow, she is really, really good.’ The next day, it was crazy. Everybody was talking about how good Lady Gaga was ... Well, she became a big star and maybe she became a star because I put her on the Miss Universe Pageant. It’s very possible,” he wrote in 2011’s “Time to Get Tough.” “She’s a fantastic person, solid as a rock and I’m very proud of her success because I really believe I had at least something to do with it.”
The pop star and Hillary Clinton supporter hasn’t commented on this claim, but she has taken Trump to task again and again. She also staged a protest outside Trump Tower just before the election.
Kanye West: Unlike many of his contemporaries, West surprised everyone by wholeheartedly embracing the president. During the presidential campaign, the egos of both men were often compared — leading Trump to tell Rolling Stone, “Somehow there are comparisons made so often, which is interesting, comparisons with Kanye and myself. I don’t quite get it.”
West — whose most prominent political moment came in 2005 when he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” during a live telethon raising money for victims of Hurricane Katrina — told the audience at his 2016 show in San Jose, California, “I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? But if I would have voted, I would have voted on Trump.”
The crowd booed loudly, but West never backed down. Two years later, he took to Twitter to support Trump, going so far as to post a photo of an autographed red MAGA hat.
He’s been rapping about that hat ever since.
Peggy Lee: One of Trump’s odder iterations with music takes the form of his favorite song: Peggy Lee’s 1969 hit “Is That All There Is?”
The song is a nihilist’s dream, inspired by Thomas Mann’s “Disillusionment.” It’s essentially a spoken world ballad, with Lee listing wonderful and awful things that fail to impress her throughout life, such as falling in love, seeing the circus and watching her house burn down. The song’s final verse ends with: “And when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath/ I’ll be saying to myself/Is that all there is?”
Eventually, she turns to alcohol to find joy.
Trump appears to see it as a mirror of his feelings regarding his own success.
“It’s a great song because I’ve had these tremendous successes and then I’m off to the next one. Because, it’s like, ‘Oh, is that all there is?’ ” he said in 2014.