Donald Trump finally got me to listen to Noah Kahan. The singer-songwriter from Vermont has steadily increased his audience since his first release in 2019, to the point that his fourth album, “The Great Divide,” debuted at No. 1 when it was released in April, the biggest opening week for a rock album since 2014.
Now he’s joined the legion of artists that have blasted the White House for using their music – in this case, to accompany video of Trump’s visit to an auto plant in Michigan. No doubt some young dolt at the White House thought “American Cars,” a track off Kahan’s new album, was an obvious choice. The song has gotten enough radio airplay that it reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 despite not being officially released as a single.
Granted, the title phrase fits, and there’s one line that reads “You’re gonna fix it, you’re gonna patch it up” that a MAGAt might interpret as praise for Dear Leader. The song has a heartland rock vibe, and snippets of it work well on TikTok. But Kahan wrote it about his independent sister, often called home to deal with family crises, and whoever chose it didn’t notice how much these lines describe Trump:
I hate to drag you back here, but I think he’s really lost it
He’s been sittin’ on the porch, oh, ranting like a prophet
Kahan and a co-writer both objected to its use by the administration, though as is often the case the rights were properly purchased. But true to form, the White House responded with juvenile insults, thereby turning it into free publicity for Kahan – I might never have heard him otherwise.
