It sure must stink to know that artists whose work you love hate your guts. Ted Cruz knows it. So does Donald Trump. Over the years one musical act after another has demanded he stop playing their hits at his ever-increasingly fascist-y rallies, and that includes his favorites: The Village People. But there’s one musician who’s probably fine, maybe even ecstatic, that the former president has added one of their songs to his rally playlist: the one born Steven Patrick Morrissey.
Per Stereogum, Trump has recently been playing songs from Morrissey’s beloved band, The Smiths. Was it “Bigmouth Strikes Again”? “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me”? Maybe “Half a Person”? Actually it’s a pretty funny one: Pre-show MAGA revelers at Monday’s rally in Laconia, New Hampshire were treated to “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.” Thing is, they’ve actually been playing it since at least last September:
You actually hear the Smiths more often than you’d think at 2024 Trump rallies
9/8/2023 SDGOP rally in Rapid City, South Dakota https://t.co/lNAzNNYMOk pic.twitter.com/891reN3MGR
— Soorin Kim (@SooRinKimm) January 23, 2024
Does Trump actually listen to The Smiths? Maybe! He has a deep passion for Broadway musicals and he has the world’s biggest persecution complex, so it’s not entirely far-fetched that he identifies with Morrissey’s grandiose self-pity.
Morrissey probably won’t be one of those pop stars who sends the big guy a cease and desist. His views on non-whites are, shall we say, pretty out there; he’s a supporter of the far-right extremist group For Britain, to name one of his stances. Lately, he’s been vocal about cancel culture, because of course he has.
His surviving former bandmates, however, feel differently. Shortly after news of his music being played by the magnets understander, guitarist Johnny Marr threw his foot down.
Ahh…right…OK. I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass. Consider this shit shut right down right now. https://t.co/M6eYROedOy
— Johnny Marr (@Johnny_Marr) January 23, 2024
“Ahh…right…OK. I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass,” Marr wrote on Twitter/X. “Consider this sh*t shut right down right now.”
Evidently, not all Smiths members feel comfortable with their music intro-ing a guy who’s threatened to go dictator. They are, however, okay with it being played by an Egg McMuffin-enthusiast who’s paid to murder people.
(Via Stereogum)