Music in U.S. presidential campaigns dates all the way back to George Washington

Quick! When you hear “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac, what do you think of?

For a large swath of the U.S. population who lived through the 1990s, the answer may very well be Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

“I became old enough to vote during the Clinton years, and I very clearly remember the ‘don’t stop thinking about tomorrow’ song,” said Dr. Jennie Sweet-Cushman, professor of political science at Chatham University. “I think that’s probably true for campaigns that use music effectively. You’re trying to create an energy — a vibe, if you will — around the campaign, and using music is a really effective way to do that.”

Throughout American history, presidential candidates have used music as a vital part of their campaigns, from popular hit songs played at rallies to new lyrics written to familiar melodies.

The use of music by presidential hopefuls serves several purposes, including reinforcing campaign messages, said Dr. Eric T. Kasper, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and editor of the book “You Shook Me All Campaign Long: Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond.”

“Because of the emotional appeal of music, they can help messages get across in different ways than the spoken word,” he said. “Particularly in the modern era, where a lot of campaign songs are repurposed popular music, there’s also the opportunity that once a song gets associated with a campaign, if people just hear that song being played on the radio it can make them think of that candidate.”

In the 2024 election, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ campaign received permission from artist Beyoncé to use the song “Freedom,” and she’s played it at rallies and in several ads.

Sweet-Cushman thinks that this choice of theme song is brilliant. “It’s such a reclamation of the idea of freedom, which Republicans had kind of controlled for so long,” she said.

Republican candidate Donald Trump cast his musical net a little wider, Kasper said.

“I think a lot of the campaign’s music, in a lot of ways, reflects favorite songs of the candidate and songs from when he came of age. He thinks (they) have at least a good beat and lyrics that on some level can say good things about the campaign, but a lot of the music goes a lot farther back.”

Trump has also followed in President Ronald Reagan’s footsteps and frequently uses “God Bless The U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood at rallies and appearances.

One of the complications that has arisen with using “canned” music is the legal pitfall of appropriating songs for political purposes without the artist or songwriter’s permission.

Reagan hit speed bumps with popular artists during his 1984 re-election campaign. Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp discouraged the president from using their songs “Born in the U.S.A.” and “Pink Houses,” respectively.

“Until we got to 2016, we had had a number of cases … where the artist disagreed with a candidate and they asked them not to play their music. Almost the universal response from campaigns had been — even if they had the legal right and they believed they had the legal right to play the song — they stopped out of respect for the artist or because they didn’t want it to be a drag on the campaign as far as negative press,” Kasper said. “That has not been the universally followed trend since then.”

In the past, many campaigns took the tactic of dropping tunes before copyright holders needed to turn up the legal heat. In 2008, Republican John McCain stopped using ABBA’s “Take A Chance On Me” at the band’s request, and Democrat Barack Obama nixed Sam and Dave’s soul hit “Hold On, I’m Comin’ ” after protest from singer Sam Moore.

Keith Kupferschmid, the CEO of the Copyright Alliance, said there is some nuance to this legal issue.

“The law is, basically, that you need a license if you’re going to perform these works, whether you’re a campaign or anything else. Usually, the venue will take out a license. … When you’re talking about a political campaign, things work a little bit differently.”

Different licensing

Performing rights organizations like ASCAP have separate licenses for political campaigns.

“If you’re a campaign … there’s a provision in that license that permits the PRO (performing rights organizations) to exclude any type of musical works from the license if they receive an objection from the songwriter or publisher regarding use in the campaign.”

Former President Trump recently lost a copyright infringement suit filed by singer Eddie Grant after Trump used his song “Electric Avenue” without permission.

According to Kupferschmid, these licenses came into use around 2012 after mounting calls for artists and publishers to have more of a say in how their voices and words would be used for political purposes.

Kupferschmid can’t confirm whether there has been an increase in conflicts between copyright holders and campaigns over the past few election cycles. He does note that individuals making these decisions for campaigns should be aware of the do’s and don’ts.

“When you’re talking about campaign managers and their teams, they should know and understand this. To the average person, this may seem complex and nuanced. For them … this should be pretty basic for them to know these rules,” he said.

Sweet-Cushman said that legal issues are never a good thing for a campaign, but she doesn’t think that battles with musicians will hurt Trump’s campaign specifically with voters.

“I think his campaigns have used that to his benefit as the political outsider. ‘I’m so outside the swamp that they won’t even let me use the music’ actually works for him, in a way,” she said.

The endorsement of musicians can also sway voters. Fans of musician Kid Rock will note that he performed at the 2024 Republican National Convention, and Swifties are aware that pop artist Taylor Swift endorsed Harris just after the Sept. 10 presidential debate.

Kasper said that the ease of using repurposed music likely means it will be the way forward for future campaigns.

“Now it’s so much easier to cue up individual songs. Before that technology was really there, it was usually the case that if you had to play music live anyway and get at least someone to do it, or if you’re going way back in the 19th century and you’re spreading song books to spread the word about a candidate, it would’ve been a very different set of circumstances and it would’ve made sense to take existing music that people knew well and was already in the public domain and just rewrite the lyrics to say something specific about the candidate. Now that’s just an extra level of work.”

Melodic beginnings

Campaign music in the U.S. has gone through several eras, adapting to social and technological changes — and it started with our very first president.

George Washington was honored with the song “God Save Great Washington,” which was penned three years before he was inaugurated and was used to rally new Americans behind their first leader. In a theme that would continue for a good century, “God Save Great Washington” was a familiar tune — “God Save The King” — dressed up with new lyrics. The song was more of a patriotic rallying cry for the first executive of the new Republic, as he faced no real opposition.

The first instance of battling campaigns using music was the election of 1800, with John Adams’ campaign releasing “Adams and Liberty” and the victorious Thomas Jeffeson publishing “Jefferson and Liberty” after the election but before his inauguration.

“There’s a long history of campaigns using some kind of music with the title ‘Freedom’ or ‘Liberty’ or something along those lines,” Kasper said.

Abraham Lincoln would use a similarly titled song for his successful 1860 bid.

In 1828, during the somewhat ugly competition between incumbent John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Adams used a song called “Little Know Ye Who’s Coming,” which postulated that if Adams lost, a Pandora’s box of disasters — including war, famine and Satan himself — would befall the nation.

This fearmongering was unsuccessful; Adams was trounced by Jackson in the general election.

Popular vote, popular songs

One of Kasper’s favorite way-back examples is the song “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” It was written for the 1840 campaign of William Henry Harrison, who earned the “Tippecanoe” nickname after a battle in the Indiana Territory while he served as its governor in 1811.

“It becomes so important because it’s right at this time when property qualifications are being removed from voting, so you have a large increase in the number of eligible voters and a significant percentage of them have a lower level of literacy. So being able to reach the public through song becomes so important by 1840,” Kasper said.

Harrison’s campaign worked to meet those voters where they were in a number of ways. He made national campaign stops with huge crowds. These stops also featured a large metal ball printed with slogans that rolled from town to town (the genesis of the idiom “keep the ball rolling”).

When it came to music, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” was popular in songbooks that were printed and handed out to supporters.

“People could play these at rallies or even at gatherings at home. All they’d need is a piano and someone who could play the sheet music,” Kasper said.

For the rest of the century — and into the start of the next — campaign songs would continue to have a few things in common. One, they would normally be set to the tune of popular songs at the time: “Tippecanoe” itself was set to “Three Litle Pigs,” and Harrison’s opponent, Martin van Buren, also had a song set to the tune of “Rockabye Baby” where he called Harrison a drunk and fake. There was also a tradition of songs that heralded the gallantry and bravery of their candidate, especially since so many leaders at the time were war heroes.

The 1932 campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt started a trend that remains the norm: using existing popular music to bolster enthusiasm.

FDR’s team, after much debate, chose “Happy Days are Here Again” as their campaign anthem and message. In the midst of the Great Depression, the song — which was written for the musical film “Chasing Rainbows” — was quite popular. This message was also carried by a growing medium: the radio. Linking a song that could be played far and wide to an audience instead of just sung in person made the choice even more effective.

Technology helps campaigns sing a new tune

By 1952, radio had given way to TV and one of the most famously successful campaign ads in American history. The “Ike for President” ad features a catchy song and patriotic cartoon images created by volunteers from Disney.

That campaign also featured the song “I Like Ike,” a tune written by Irving Berlin for a musical with slightly changed lyrics.

“It’s really kind of ushering in this ‘Mad Men’-era jingle trying to sell anything and it’s being used in a campaign. It’s toward the end of this era when you have a lot of music with lyrics written specific to the campaign. And the fact that they were trying to marry it with a cartoon — they could have a visual to go along with it — is something quite innovative,” Kasper said.

John F. Kennedy’s campaign would bring all of these successful historical concepts together — jingle-like ads, celebrity-sung songs, changed lyrics to popular tunes and the masterful use of television — to craft its media in 1960. His catchy ad, simply called “Kennedy!” is legendary. There was also the song “High Hopes” — first appearing in the 1959 film “A Hole In The Head” and winner of Best Original Song at the Academy Awards — that Frank Sinatra sang with some lyrical changes to make it specific to the candidate.

In the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter brought a more youthful tone to musical campaigning, quoting Bob Dylan in campaign speeches and partnering with artists including the Allman Brothers and Willie Nelson for fundraising and to energize younger voters.

The United States entered its current campaign music era in the 1980s when Ronald Reagan used “canned” music at his events. Simply playing pre-existing recordings of songs including “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood became a staple of his public rallies, and that tradition continues in today’s election cycle.

It’s also important to note that the internet — and especially YouTube, which came online in 2005 — plays a big role in current campaigns’ ability to spread their message through song. The most famous example is rapper Will.i.am’s song “Yes We Can,” with a star-studded music video that was uploaded to YouTube supporting Barack Obama’s 2008 run.

Choosing or creating the perfect songs can work to great effect for a campaign like Obama’s, and not just to increase the enthusiasm of a candidate’s voter base.

“Enthusiasm, sure, but just the emotional attachment. When those songs resonate with supporters and especially volunteers, there’s an energy that you create, a positive feeling that you then associate with the candidate,” Sweet-Cushman said. “Volunteering for political campaigns can be hard work — frequently you never even meet the candidate from a presidential campaign — and the gratification is in the good energy and satisfaction you get from contributing to something bigger than yourself. To attach feel-good music to that only expands that feeling.”