Sunday 21 June 2020

Hands off

From The Guardian:

The family of Tom Petty has issued a formal cease and desist letter to the Donald Trump campaign over its use of his song I Won’t Back Down at a rally in Tulsa on 20 June.

Full story:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/21/tom-petty-estate-issues-cease-and-desist-over-trump-use-of-song

I loved Tom Petty's recordings and was shocked and saddened when he died. He was an astonishing songwriter and performer, but he also had time for his fans. When I was on Twitter, one of my most treasured responses was a "thanks!" from the man himself, for some comment I'd made about his music. It made my day (my week, even), but I've no doubt that it was merely one of thousands of typically kind responses.

Tom Petty's music continues to shine, and will be listened to long after Trump is (at best) a footnote.

5 comments:

  1. I still can’t believe he’s gone. Such a terrible loss.

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  2. If you are in the UK, keep an eye out for The Petty Criminals, very good TP tribute act:

    https://pettycriminals.com/

    My mate (and his mate) supported them and did a TP song in their own set.

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  3. His music will live on indeed. In contrast to his surname, he was never petty. :-) Unlike some of those will-end-up-as-footnotes politicians of yesterday and today...

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  4. Nice to hear you had an online interaction with Tom; I'm envious!

    It's amazing just how consistently the Trump campaign misinterprets the messages of the songs they use (or simply ignores them knowing their audience won't catch on). Perhaps the most galling was their use of Springsteen's "Born in the USA".

    Anyway, back to reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's 'Children of Ruin'. Hoping to finish before your conversation/Q&A. I read 'Children of Time' a while back and thought it was wonderful, and this seems like quite a worthy sequel so far.

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  5. Trump also plays Neil Young's music at his rallys despite being ordered to stop many times. Trump truly is the "Ugliest American".

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