It’s an election year, which means—among other things—that Donald Trump’s Spotify playlist is about to get a lot smaller. In one of his most Veep-adjacent stunts yet, the twice-impeached and many-times-indicted former president played a song by The Smiths ahead of a recent campaign rally in South Dakota, and... well... you kind of have to see it to believe it.
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No, this isn’t satire. Trump really did play “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want” before taking the stage to beg for the American people to please, please, please let him eat McDonald’s in the Oval Office again. While we obviously hope that won’t come to pass, we can rest assured that there’s at least one thing 45 definitely won’t be getting again: the rights to use The Smiths’ music.
In a response to the above video, The Smiths founding member and guitarist Johnny Marr expressed his unequivocal disdain for the candidate. “Ahh…right…OK. I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass,” he wrote. “Consider this shit shut right down right now.”
While it must be incredibly jarring to hear your art used in this way, Marr shouldn’t really be all that surprised. Trump has a long history of using artists’ work without their consent, especially if the song has the word “want” in it. Yeah... he couldn’t be more on the nose if he tried. Previous victims include The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way,” as well as work by Neil Young, Elton John, The Village People, R.E.M., Adele, The Beatles, Phil Collins, Queen, and scores of other artists.
Controversial Smiths frontman Morrissey has not commented on the incident thus far. Still, even though he’s ridden pretty hard for Brexit and other xenophobic causes in the past, he has been vocally anti-Trump and once said if he could push a button and kill him he’d do it “for the safety of the human race” (via Variety).
Marr, on the other hand, has never wavered from his principles and really hates it when conservatives stream his work. “David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don’t. I forbid you to like it,” he wrote on Twitter/X back in 2010. It seems like anyone who’s ever worn, considered buying, or even looked at a red hat should heed the same directive.