Trump campaign rally plays the Smiths, Johnny Marr responds

Ahead of the New Hampshire primary earlier this week, political reporter Ben Jacobs attended a rally for former President Donald Trump and noted in a posting on X that the Smiths had been added to the presumptive Republican nominee’s pre-show playlist.

The following day, ABC’s Soorin Kim noted that this wasn’t a new development. “You actually hear the Smiths more often than you’d think at 2024 Trump rallies,” she posted, along with a video of “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want,” one of the Smiths’s most beloved songs, being played at a Trump event in 2023.

Eventually, the video found its way to Johnny Marr, founding guitarist of the Smiths, and he promised to put a stop to his music being played at Trump’s rallies. “Ahh…right…OK,” he wrote on X, “I never in a million years would’ve thought this could come to pass. Consider this shit shut right down right now.”

While the Smiths is far from the kind of music you’d expect at a Trump rally, his campaign regularly gets smacked down by musicians who have the dubious distinction of having their songs played before one of his shows. Rihanna took legal action after “Don’t Stop the Music” was played before one of Trump’s “tragic” rallies in 2018; many other acts, including Phil Collins, Pharrell, and the Rolling Stones have threatened the Trump campaign with lawsuits after their songs were played at events.