Liz Truss isn’t the first political leader to make use of well known songs at a political rally without the artists’ permission. The band Keane strongly objected to the Tories using ‘Everybody’s Changing’ in their 2010 campaign. Dunfermline’s Big Country were not happy that the Yes Campaign adopted ‘One Great Thing’ without their say-so during the Independence Referendum.
You don’t just find this going on in the UK. The same has happened over the years in the USA. George W H Bush must have had Woody Guthrie turning in his grave with his use of ‘This Land is Your Land’. Bruce Springsteen was livid at the Reagan Campaign hijacking his ‘Born in the USA’ in 1984, as were the Rolling Stones when Trump, more recently, played ‘You can’t always get what you want’ before every personal appearance.
Artists have always been more relaxed about lending their songs to the Labour Party and the Democrats. That’s possibly because progressive thinking and creativity sit more easily together. D Ream were happy to have ‘Things can only get better’ belted out at Labour’s 97 victory party. And Tony Blair won the voters hearts and minds in 2005 with ‘Lifted’ by the Lighthouse People playing in the background. Over in the States, Franklin D Roosevelt made ‘Happy Days are here again’ the Democrats anthem in 1932 (and for decades thereafter). Frank Sinatra even wrote a campaign version of his ‘High Hopes’ to help Kennedy to victory in 1960. On the final night of the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Stevie Wonder played his song, 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered.' It became the anthem for the Obama campaign during the primaries. Obama returned to those roots after re-election in 2012 walking out to give his victory speech to that same tune.
The Biden Campaign had a few good songs but my own favourite by far was ‘The Love’ by Black Eyed Peas and Jennifer Hudson.
We may be only a year away from the next General Election and the way things are looking, Labour needs to come up with an inspiring choice of song to match what could be an occasion on a par with the result in 1997.