Back in June, Queen had called Donald Trump out over his campaign’s unauthorized use of the band’s 1977 classic, “We Are The Champions,” after the Republican candidate gave his victory speech for reaching the final round of Republican primaries.
Brian May was not happy about this, though, and took his frustrations to his website to clarify that Trump’s use of the song is “not an official Queen statement,” and confirmed that “permission to use the track was neither sought nor given.” May further explained that it has “always been against [Queen’s] policy” for their songs to be used as “a political campaigning tool.”
But evidently, the first no wasn’t enough to stop Donald Trump, as during the first night of the Republican National Convention yesterday evening, Trump walked on stage to the song once again moments before introducing his wife for her headlining speech. Immediately following the event, Queen took to Twitter to clear the air, but also followed their tweet up with the following official statement issued by their publishing company, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, according to Rolling Stone:
“We are frustrated by the repeated unauthorized use of the song after a previous request to desist, which has obviously been ignored by Mr. Trump and his campaign. […] Queen does not want its music associated with any mainstream or political debate in any country. Nor does Queen want ‘We are the Champions’ to be used as an endorsement of Mr. Trump and the political views of the Republican Party. We trust, hope and expect that Mr. Trump and his campaign will respect these wishes moving forward.”
Hopefully, Trump will listen this time around, but Queen definitely isn’t the only band to have responded in such a way; Aerosmith, R.E.M., and Neil Young, amongst others, have also called Trump out for unauthorized use of their music.
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