About 4% of people suffer from a disorder called “amusia,” which keeps them from recognizing and perceiving melodies and rhythms. As a result, they have no emotional or spiritual connection to music.
What does it mean when a person doesn’t like music?
The sensei of self-promotion also admires the alliterative braggadocio of Eminem. Game recognize game?
On the August 29, 2019, episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” magician and author Penn Jillette described the unique power of music in connecting people. He quoted jazz legend Thelonius Monk, “A genius is the one most like himself.”
Jillette was a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2012 and 2013 and got to know pre-White House Donald Trump. Jillette told Rogan that in all the time he spent around Trump, he never saw him “show any joy or understanding of music.”
Street Fighting Man
Curiously, our 45th president has portrayed himself as an ardent defender of the auditory arts from a tender age. In his 1987 memoir and master class “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” the sensei of self-promotion brags about punching his second-grade teacher in the face “because I didn’t think he knew anything about music.”
His 2004 follow-up, “Trump: Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate, and Life,” doubles down on the title colons — and the claims of musicophilia:
“In Trump Tower, we play a variety of music — anything from renditions of ‘Moon River’ to versions of Rachmaninov’s famous piano concertos. Some people call it cheesy, but others love it, and so do I.”
Other artists Trump admits to enjoying include Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Also Elton John, whose 1972 hit inspired the “Rocket Man” honorific Trump bestowed upon North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The sensei of self-promotion also admires the alliterative braggadocio of Eminem. Game recognize game? Hardly: The artist also known as Marshall Mathers reportedly hates Trump’s guts.
I and I
Still, it’s all “one love” for dubmaster Donald, who’s been known to relax to the soothing, spliff-burning vibes of reggae. When not blasting “Legend” on repeat like a University of Vermont sophomore on the first real day of hacky-sack weather, the Queens native grooves to the downtown tape-loop experiments of avant-garde composer Steve Reich.
Trump’s first presidential bid gave him a chance to share his eclectic taste with his fans. At rally after rally he strutted his stuff to a veritable MAGA mix tape of bangers, including tracks by Rihanna, R.E.M., Adele, Guns N’ Roses, Queen, and many other artists who requested he cease using their work.
Neil Young’s “Keep On Rockin’ in the Free World” proved especially resonant with Trump’s apocalyptic “prophet without honor” persona: “There’s a warning sign on the road ahead / There’s a lot of people saying we’d be better off dead / Don’t feel like Satan, but I am to them / So I try to forget it any way I can.”
Sadly, the grungy Bernie bro failed to appreciate the synchronicity.
Exile on Main Street
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” let Trump playfully troll his haters — until the Rolling Stones pitched a fit.
Trump’s response was that of a true fan: “I have no problem with that. I like Mick Jagger.”
Her majesty (as Keith Richards nicknamed his preening bandmate) may have abandoned Trump, but the King of Pop always had his back. During their decades-long friendship, Michael Jackson helped the Trump kids stack Legos to make tiny yellow Trump Towers and attended young Ivanka Trump’s ballet recital (a Christmas performance of “The Nutcracker”).
The pair got along so well that day that Michael Jackson invited Trump to tag along as Jackson paid his condolences to the family of Ryan White, an Indiana teenager who died of AIDs in 1990.
And when Jackson hid out with Elvis Presley’s daughter in the days before their 1994 nuptials, it was at Trump Tower.
Can’t Stop the Music
When Trump lost the White House in 2020, the music didn’t stop. Instead, the indefatigable 70-something hit the road for what’s becone a Dylan-esque never-ending tour, pumping up the adoring crowds with “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner and the Village People’s “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.”
If Bill Clinton was our first “black” president, as novelist Toni Morrison famously quipped, perhaps Trump was our first “gay” one. His flair for drama and mastery of camp certainly added life to the moribund Grand Old Party.
It’s 3 a.m. in America. We’ve run out of beer and chips. The uptight neighbors have called the cops. We can either choose to pull the plug on the tunes … or crank them up.
I think we all know what the former party rocker in chief would do. Want to get this country back on its feet? It’s time to put Donald Trump back on aux.