Why is Neil Young the only musician beyond Donald Trump’s wrath?
Right now, Donald Trump is fighting many wars, and one of them is with a rock star. The US president is currently locked in a battle of words with Bruce Springsteen, a situation where every time ‘The Boss’ makes a statement, Trump takes to social media to rage at him. It’s a common pattern. Trump has done this with various musicians, including repeated comments about Taylor Swift being “no longer hot” after she spoke out against him. But one person seems to get off relatively scot-free, which raises the question: why does Donald Trump never go after Neil Young?
If this all comes down to Trump lashing out at the people who talk down on him, Young should be target number one. Not only does the folk-rock legend have a long, and I mean life-long, legacy of using his music to speak out about social and political injustices, never shy about naming names and pointing fingers, but he has also been pointing his finger right at Trump for a long time.
It goes back to 2015, when Trump first began talking about politics. As soon as he started doing that, he co-opted Neil Young’s track, ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’, and the moment that happened, Young pushed back. While he initially found that he had no legal grounds to stop the politician from using the song, Young definitely wasn’t quiet about it. In 2020, he released his first deeply scathing open letter to Trump, speaking directly to him when he said, “Every time ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ or one of my songs is played at your rallies, I hope you hear my voice. Remember, it is the voice of a tax-paying US citizen who does not support you. Me.”
When the situation kept going, Young eventually found a legal route to go down, suing Trump for copyright infringement over the track, but here’s where it gets odd.
On the whole, for the long list of artists who have denied or banned Trump from using their music, there is almost always some comeback. Especially if that artist has been particularly vocal, Trump rarely concedes without getting in at least some childish little dig about them, their music or a petty comment along the lines of, ‘I always hated them anyway’. But when Young started kicking off, Trump silently settled with him, paying him a sum and keeping his mouth shut.
Young hasn’t kept his trap shut, though. On his website, the Neil Young Archives, it’s rare to even go a few weeks without Trump’s name popping up. Even recently, while Trump is busy fighting Springsteen, Young wrote him an open letter, once again, stating, “STOP THINKING ABOUT WHAT THE ROCKERS ARE SAYING. Think about saving America from the mess you made. Taylor Swift is right. So is Bruce. You know how I feel. You are more worried about yourself than AMERICA. Wake up, Trump!!”
While critiquing Trump for being more bothered about the statements musicians are making about him than the critical and ever-worsening global issues he should be dealing with, Young has also expressed concern that perhaps he will be next. As he’s about to take off to the UK and Europe to play, he publicly shared his worries about being barred from re-entering America, noting, “When I go to play music in Europe, if I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminum blanket. That is happening all the time now. Countries have new advice for those returning to America.“
But Trump really does seem to just leave Neil Young alone. Unlike the vitriol he’s spewed at Springsteen, calling for “a major investigation” into the artist and threatening, “This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country”, the president has always been quiet about Young.
It seems to all come down to one thing: taste. When ranting about Springsteen, Trump claimed he “never liked him, never liked his music, or his radical left politics” and called him “not a talented guy”. Maybe this all comes down to the fact that he could never say that about Young because Trump is on record as a big fan.
In a 2008 Rolling Stone article, Trump practically gushes about his love for Young, talking about the concerts he’s attended and claiming he has “something very special” and is “a terrific guy” whose music he’s listened to “for years”. Pretending to be a music journalist for a moment, Trump added that he “[likes] the older stuff better”, but that Young’s whole discography is “sort of all my favourite”.
He concluded, “His voice is perfect and haunting”, adding, “Whatever the hell ‘it’ is, he’s got it”.
So really, Trump can’t say all that much about Young without appearing like a hypocrite. He can’t discredit his music when he’s been a noted huge fan of it, and perhaps, given that fact, he genuinely doesn’t want to.
