Trump shares video of ‘Fortunate Son’ playing at rally despite cease-and-desist from John Fogerty
President Trump last week flew Marine One into a campaign rally in Florida to the tune of “Fortunate Son,” despite former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty attempting to block him from doing so with a cease-and-desist order.
Video with the event was turned into a clip by Twitter user @Wizard_Predicts, an election news account with more than 14,000 followers, and the president retweeted the video shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2020
The split-screen video appeared to mock Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and the size of his rallies. It shows Biden walking down a set of steps to join a small group of masked supporters who are separated by social distancing circles due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The clip contrasts Trump’s boisterous entrance to an Oct. 23 rally in The Villages, Fla., when Marine One hovered over a large crowd of predominately maskless supporters while the 1969 rock anthem played over the speakers.
The music choice raised questions on social media since Fogerty has been a vocal opponent to Trump’s use of his song.
Fogerty said Oct. 16 that he was issuing a cease-and-desist order to the Trump campaign to block the tune from being played at the political rallies.
“I object to the President using my song, ‘Fortunate Son’ in any way for his campaign. He is using my words and my voice to portray a message that I do not endorse,” the rock icon shared in a statement on Twitter.
“Therefore, I am issuing a ‘cease and desist’ order. I wrote this song because, as a veteran, I was disgusted that some people were allowed to be excluded from serving our country because they had access to political and financial privilege. I also wrote about wealthy people not paying their fair share of taxes,” he continued.
Fogerty added that “Mr. Trump is a prime example of both of these issues. The fact that Mr. Trump also fans the flames of hatred, racism and fear while rewriting recent history, is even more reason to be troubled by his use of my song.”
Trump received five deferments from the military draft. He was granted a 1-Y medical deferment for a bone spurs diagnosis, in addition to four educational deferments, that allowed him to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.
Fogerty said that it was “confounding” for Trump to continually play the song given its blunt criticisms of class privilege.
“It’s a song I could have written now, and so I find it confusing, I would say, that the president has chosen to use my song for his political rallies, when in fact it seems like he is probably the fortunate son,” Fogerty said.
Several other musicians, including Neil Young, Panic! At The Disco frontman Brendon Urie, Adele, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Rihanna and Elton John, have either disavowed Trump’s use of their music at campaign events or threatened legal action over it.
Last year, a campaign video tweeted by the president that featured Queen’s “We Will Rock You” was taken down after the band’s publisher made a complaint.
When asked for comment about Trump’s video, Fogerty’s representatives directed The Hill to the musician’s newly created TikTok account.
In a video posted late Wednesday, the singer issued a musical response to Trump with the help of his granddaughter.
@johnfogerty35 ##biden2020 ##vote ##unfortunateson ##election2020 https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJmX1sG4/
“Today with school being online, I thought I would give a little history lesson. My grandpa wrote a song called ‘Fortunate Son’ — he was a veteran,” she said in the clip. “It was about himself and others who were forced to go fight a war they did not support, yet around him were others of privilege and upper class that didn’t have to. My generation can’t let this happen again. Hit it grandpa!”
Fogerty hopped on the guitar and gave a quick rendition of the hit song, using the hashtags for Biden’s campaign, as well as “unfortunate son” and “vote.”
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