For politicians, walking on-stage to music at the annual party conference could easily seem like a good idea – a simple way to convey an air of confidence and positivity, in spite of how their policies are being received.
But, as Liz Truss discovered yesterday, it’s actually fraught with potential danger.
The Prime Minister chose to stride onto the stage to address her Conservative Party colleagues to the throwback sounds of Moving On Up by 90s band M People, who promptly responded with fury. Band member Mike Pickering said they were ‘quite left-leaning’ and ‘really upset’ and ‘livid’ that the track had been used. He later added that he was shocked to find Truss did not need their permission to use it.
It's far from the first time the pairing of a politician and a pop song has ended badly. Who can forget Theresa May dancing robotically onto the conference stage in 2018 to Abba’s Dancing Queen, apparently hoping to show her ‘human side’?
In fact, the history of politicians and their musical choices is littered with embarrassing misfires, mostly the result of the musicians trying to distance themselves from the politician who chose them as their muse.
In 2006, David Cameron professed his love for The Smiths, picking their song This Charming Man as one of his Desert Island Discs, only for guitarist Johnny Marr to tweet, ‘Stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don’t. I forbid you to like it.’
Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke also came forward to dispute Cameron’s claim that the band had performed the song Fake Plastic Trees at a show following a request by Cameron. In a statement, he said its inclusion in the band’s set had ‘nothing to do with any special guests.’
Gordon Brown was tripped up when he attempted to prove his cool credentials by citing Arctic Monkeys as a favourite – then failing to name a single one of their songs. Even Oasis, whose 1997 visit to Downing Street for drinks with Tony Blair became symbolic of the Cool Britannia years, later said they were sick of taking ‘flak’ for it.
Probably the politician musicians have least enjoyed being associated with is Donald Trump, however. ‘Musicians who oppose Donald Trump’s use of their music’ has its own Wikipedia page, with a list of 26 artists including Rihanna, The Beatles and Elton John. Cease and desist letters sent to him by Adele and Aerosmith to try to get him to stop playing their songs at his rallies had little effect, so Bruce Springsteen tried another tack: he endorsed Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton so vociferously that his song Born in the USA was booed loudly every time it came on at a Trump event. Clever.
Former X Factor contestant Ella Henderson has discovered that it’s also ill-advised to perform at a political event unless you really believe in their values. Her performance at a TikTok sponsored event at this week’s Conservative Party conference went down like a lead balloon on Twitter, forcing TikTok to say it was no indication of her ‘political affiliation’ and that she was also supposed to perform at the Labour Party conference but had to pull out due to illness.
Sometimes, an affiliation between a song and a politician can work out for both parties. D
Whether Truss’s endorsement of Moving On Up will have the same outcome, only time will tell.