‘The Liar’: How The Waterboys tried to capture the ultimate “Trumpian drama”
United States President Donald Trump is no stranger to dissent from citizens of his country and beyond. This has made him the focus of countless protest songs over the past decade, among which is a scathing track by The Waterboys.
The band’s frontman, Mike Scott, hasn’t exactly been shy about his feelings on Trump’s political antics. He’s been calling them out for years now, and in 2022, he even went as far as dedicating an entire song to the bloke. Safe to say, he’s not a fan.
Criticisms of the businessman-turned-politician within the creative circuit continue to grow as he is back in office for a second term. His return to the White House earlier this year surprised many, considering initiatives to have him removed manifested twice during his first run.
Trump was first impeached in 2019 after an investigation found that he had summoned foreign assistance to interfere in the presidential elections and help his campaign. Though he was later acquitted, the New York native went on to lose the race to the White House as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won 51.3% of the votes.
As his time in office was nearing its end, a large crowd made up of more than 2,000 MAGA supporters stormed the US Capitol building in Washington, DC, in an attempt to keep him in power. Because the attack traced back to the Republicans trying to overturn the election, he was impeached for the second time for ‘incitement of insurrection’. Once again, he was acquitted.
The Scottish singer-songwriter initially wrote a poem about his disdain for Trump that he posted on Twitter in the aftermath of his first impeachment. Following the attack in the country’s capital, he repurposed the verses into a song that was later published as ‘The Liar’. The hard-hitting tune was released on The Waterboys’ 2022 album, All Souls Hill, and even features audio recordings from the actual Capitol riots.
“All the lines are either explicit or symbolic references to characters in the Trumpian drama,” Scott told The Sun about said track.
He wrote ‘The Liar’ in collaboration with Simon Dine, in addition to five other tracks on the album. About the joint effort, the Scotsman added that the instrumental tracks he typically receives from his songwriting partner gave him “an opportunity to add melody and words to music I wouldn’t have thought of writing myself”.
With lyrics like “A crooked general gave a speech, when the liar was impeached” and “The shining Capitol gates were breached, when the liar was impeached”, there’s no mystery whatsoever surrounding who the song is directed at. While Scott’s composition certainly stands out as one of the fiercest strikes against Trump, a number of his peers have also made it clear that they want nothing to do with the 47th president of the United States.
When the former reality-television star used Blue Öyster Cult’s classic hit, ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’, in a social-media post aimed at undermining the Democratic Party, the group issued a statement clarifying that they never had a say in its political usage since the song’s copyright is owned entirely by their label. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security shared a post bragging about the mass deportations across the country, in which they used ‘Life After All Criminal Aliens Are Deported’ by The Cure.
The video was subsequently taken down due to a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) request, but only after amassing 23 million views.
