Former President Donald J. Trump is using Celine Dion and Isaac Hayes songs at rallies, and neither artist's camp is happy about it. The Republican presidential candidate played Dion's “My Heart Will Go On,” prompting the Quebec-born singer to post on social media: “Under no circumstances is this use permitted and Celine Dion does not endorse her or any similar use'. For the famously tragic single, the statement concluded, “…And really, THAT song?”
Hayes' estate, meanwhile, threatened to sue for $3 million in licensing fees for Trump's years-long use of “Hold On, I'm Coming,” which Hayes wrote for Sam & Dave. (In 2017, Sam Moore played an inauguration for Trump, saying, “I'm not going to let them, the left, bully me out of doing what I think is right for the country and that [presidential] stamp.”) In its legal letter, Hayes' family said it had “repeatedly asked” Trump to stop using the song without success, BBC News notes. The family added, through its lawyer, that Trump “deliberately and brazenly engaged in copyright infringement.”
Recent additions to the wide range of artists to denounce Trump's use of their music include Johnny Marr (“Think this shit's going to shut down right now,” he said of the former Smiths frontman's selection of “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”) and, posthumously, Sinéad O'Connor, whose estate said she would have been “disgusted, hurt and offended if her work was misconstrued in this way”. Quoting the late singer, the statement admonished Trump as a “Biblical devil.”
