Neil Young has spent more than a decade telling Donald Trump to stop playing “Rockin’ in the Free World.” Now, he says the president and his political operation once again ignored a legal agreement to do exactly that.
Young filed a new copyright infringement lawsuit against the Trump 47 Committee on Monday after the song was allegedly played without a license before Trump took the stage at an October 12th midterm campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio. The complaint seeks $10 million in damages and an order barring the committee from using Young’s music going forward (via Billboard).
This isn’t Young’s legal team’s first trip around the block. Young previously sued Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign over its use of “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Devil’s Sidewalk” at campaign events. According to the new complaint, that case was resolved after the campaign promised not to use “Rockin’ in the Free World” again without a license.
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The fight stretches back to the beginning. Trump used “Rockin’ in the Free World” when he launched his first presidential campaign at Trump Tower in June 2015, prompting Young to publicly object. Even then, Trump’s campaign subsequently said it would stop using the song.
Young’s latest filing also argues that the song itself makes for an especially strange fit with Trump. The 1989 track contrasts its anthemic chorus with images of poverty, addiction, homelessness, and social decay. The complaint puts its position clearly: “In short, the song is the opposite of everything Donald J. Trump stands for.”
Young filed the suit in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The next development will likely come after the Trump 47 Committee is formally served: under federal court rules, defendants generally have 21 days from service to answer a complaint or file a motion challenging it. No hearing date has been set.
Young has hardly retired “Rockin’ in the Free World” from political life himself. During a September show with Willie Nelson, he closed his set with the song while repeatedly chanting “Take America Back!” The track also received an all-star airing at October’s Power to the People Festival, where Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Tom Morello performed it together.
The difference, as Young’s latest lawsuit makes clear, is who gets to decide when the song gets played.
Not every musician is keeping as much distance from Trump. On Sunday, Nicki Minaj joined him at a campaign rally in Michigan, where he praised her “beautiful ass” and encouraged her to stand up so the crowd could see. Earlier in the day, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung had also floated Minaj as a potential new press secretary.