Woodkid – Photo: Facebook; Donald Trump – Photo: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
French singer-songwriter Woodkid is calling out Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign for using his song “Run Boy Run” at rallies.
Woodkid, whose real name is Yoann Lemoine, previously criticized the campaign in December for releasing a two-minute video, featuring images of soldiers and anti-vaccine demonstrators alongside clips of Trump’s speeches, as the artist’s 2012 single plays in the background.
According to Euro News, the Trump campaign has played that video featuring Woodkid’s song, or sometimes just the song alone, at Trump’s rallies. And despite the artist’s objections, the Trump campaign re-released the video from December on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
On August 7, Woodkid took to X to protest the campaign’s use of his music.
“Once again, I never authorized the use of my music on this @realDonaldTrump film,” he wrote.
Once again, I never gave permission for the use of my music on that @realDonaldTrump film.
Run Boy Run is a LGBT+ anthem wrote by me, a proud LGBT+ musician. How ironic.
Please react and don’t be complicit @UMusicFrance
Woodkid also urged his label, Universal Music France, to “react and don’t be complicit” by allowing Trump’s use of the song to go unchallenged.
“Run Boy Run” is an anthem about transformation and the pursuit of personal freedom. It is about a misfit who must break free from rigid societal norms. Woodkid has previously said the song is inspired by his experiences as a gay man.
In 2016, Woodkid spoke out against anti-gay marriage demonstrators in France for playing the song during their rallies. “It’s the Middle Ages aspect of my music that must have appealed to them.”
Many U.S. politicians have cribbed songs from popular artists for use at their campaign rallies, usually by buying licensing packages from music rights organizations, which give them legal access to millions of songs. However, artists — and more importantly, their labels — do have the right to demand the music be removed from the list of available songs.
Several other artists have previously blasted the Trump campaign for using their music without permission, including Adele, Rihanna, The White Stripes, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Pharrell Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Linkin Park, and Elton John. All have either demanded the Trump campaign stop using their music without permission or disavowed the use of their songs at pro-Trump rallies.
As Euro News notes, the estates of Leonard Cohen, Beatles guitarist George Harrison, Sinéad O’Connor, Isaac Hayes, Prince, Tom Petty, and Luciano Pavarotti have also objected to the campaign’s use of the artists’ music for campaign rallies.
In 2020, Victor Willis, the lead singer of the disco-era group the Village People asked the then-president to stop playing the group’s songs “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.” in protest of his threat to use the U.S. military to shut down protests against racism and police brutality, including those organized by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Thanks to my dad's career, the Army was a huge part of my upbringing. When I was little, vaccinations, swimming lessons, and commissary shopping meant a trip to Fort Belvoir, Virginia. My elder brother followed in our father's Army footsteps, becoming an Army helicopter pilot. My stepfather was in the Navy during World War II, serving on a submarine in the Pacific.
When I hit 18, when I was most likely to consider joining the military myself, even "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was a few years away. If you were found to be gay, out you went. Poring over reams of court documents, during a college internship, regarding the murder of Naval officer Allen R. Schindler Jr., assured me that I was better off as a civilian. Schindler, who was gay and born the same year as me, was beaten to death by two shipmates during shore leave in Japan.
At 56, I've seen plenty. Never, of course, have I seen the federal government so batshit bonkers, so desperate to assert itself into every nook and cranny of American life, from the critical to the comical. Take that, Colbert and Kimmel! Gotcha, plaque mentioning Transgender participation at the Stonewall Inn! We're gonna get you, sandwich guy!! We're deporting Bad Bunny! To… ahem… Puerto Rico?
What do you call this clinical level of desperation? Stephen Miller.
We've got masked federal goons playing tough in cities far and wide. Are these Proud Boys? Oath Keepers? Three Percenters? Quite likely, but who the hell knows? Aside from Kristi "Canine Killer" Noem, Tom (sub)Homan, and their colleagues, presumably.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, an out lesbian, is threatening to sue House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to seat a duly elected Democratic congresswoman from her state.
In an October 14 letter to Johnson, Mayes accused the House Republican leader of violating the U.S. Constitution by delaying the swearing-in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Grijalva won a September 23 special election to replace her father, Raúl, who represented Tucson and southern Arizona in Congress for more than two decades.
Mayes noted that during Johnson's tenure as speaker, he swore in five new members -- four of them Republicans -- "at the earliest opportunity." That included two GOP special election winners who were sworn in earlier this year while the House was in recess, according to The New York Times.
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