Former President Donald J. Trump has been using Celine Dion and Isaac Hayes songs at rallies, and neither artist’s camp is happy about it. The Republican presidential nominee has played Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” prompting the Quebecois-born singer to post on social media, “In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use.” Of the famously tragic single, the statement concluded, “…And really, THAT song?”
The estate of Hayes, meanwhile, threatened to sue for $3 million in licensing fees for Trump’s use, over several years, of “Hold On, I’m Coming,” which Hayes wrote for Sam & Dave. (Back in 2017, Sam Moore played an inauguration event for Trump, saying, “I am not going to let them, the left side, intimidate me from doing what I feel is the right thing to do for the country and that [presidential] seal.”) In its legal letter, Hayes’ family said it “asked repeatedly” for Trump to stop using the song without success, BBC News notes. The family added, through its lawyer, that Trump has “wilfully and brazenly engaged in copyright infringement.”
Recent additions to the wide swath of artists to denounce Trump’s use of their music include Johnny Marr (“Consider this shit shut right down,” he said of the former president’s co-option of the Smiths’ “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”) and, posthumously, Sinéad O’Connor, whose estate said she “would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way.” Quoting the late singer, the statement admonished Trump as a “Biblical devil.”
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