In the moments before Donald Trump announced his choice of running mate, Vox’s Ezra Klein told us, reporters found themselves staring at “an empty podium and the Rolling Stones blasting through the speakers.” What was the song chosen for this momentous occasion? “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The song has been background noise for Trump’s rallies for months, even though the Stones asked the candidate to cease and desist back in February. What is it doing there?To the kind of people who program event playlists, the song probably seems like just another classic rock joint, with an irresistible joke in the title—you guys may not want Donald Trump, but you need him. And that is probably all the thought that went into it. This song, however, is different. To those of us brought up on Stones lore, the song is inseparable from certain images. Brian Jones drowning in a swimming pool. Mick Jagger declaiming lines from Shelley at his tribute concert as if they were nineteenth century Stones lyrics—“Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep/He hath awakened from the dream of life…” Hell’s Angels beating Stones fans with pool cues and motorcycle chains; Meredith Hunter, a young black man, stabbed to death; Jagger watching the footage of the killing in the film Gimme Shelter, muttering “It’s so horrible.”
All of this is in the song, even if you know about none of it. It’s there in the spooky gorgeousness of the choir, in the way Jagger slows down each line so you can visualize what’s happening—“I was standing in line, with Mister Jimmy”—and in the words themselves. They are so simple, blunt, and mysterious that they can easily get into your life and walk around with you, coming to mind unbidden at the oddest moments. I rarely decide to have a soda without the words “my favorite flavor, cherry red” going through my head. Trump may have more money than you or me, but he will never be able to buy this song and everything it means. He isn’t the singer; he’s the devil, standing in line with the singer, eager to buy up another soul.
If Trump is the devil, this is his season in hell. Rick Perlstein, who has covered a few Republican conventions, says that compared to 2004, 2008, and 2012, Trump’s convention “feels like a festival.” The festival that jumps to mind is Altamont. People have been beaten, choked, kicked, groped, pepper-sprayed, and hit with rocks at Trump’s events. Keith Richards told the violent hooligans at his concert to knock it off; Donald Trump tells them they’re doing a heckuva job. And there, playing in the background, is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” with those familiar words—the abused demonstrators, the sold souls, the blood-stained hands—taking on new meaning.
If you’re feeling as despairing as I am about the way things are going, it might help to learn that the Stones had their own altercation with Trump, way back in 1989. Keith flung a knife down on a table, the stage crew picked up some hockey sticks, and when the dust had settled, Trump had fled the building. If Trump and his goons can’t beat the Rolling Stones, they don’t stand a chance against the rest of us.
The question is, what song can the Democrats play in response? The only answer Trump deserves is “White Man in Hammersmith Palais” by the Clash, which ends, in Joe Strummer’s words, thus: “If Adolf Hitler flew in today/They’d send a limousine anyway.”