{"id":41953,"date":"2025-06-16T13:01:30","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T20:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=41953"},"modified":"2025-06-16T13:01:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T20:01:31","slug":"was-someone-trolling-trump-by-playing-creedences-draft-dodger-slamming-fortunate-son-at-his-military-parade-or-is-it-just-the-further-death-of-irony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/06\/16\/was-someone-trolling-trump-by-playing-creedences-draft-dodger-slamming-fortunate-son-at-his-military-parade-or-is-it-just-the-further-death-of-irony\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Someone Trolling Trump by Playing Creedence\u2019s Draft-Dodger-Slamming \u2018Fortunate Son\u2019 at His Military Parade? Or Is It Just the Further Death of Irony?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Chris Willman<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 15, 2025 (Variety.cm) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"WASHINGTON,
Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Was the music for Saturday\u2019s military parade in Washington, D.C. covertly programmed by the \u201cNo Kings\u201d movement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the question some were asking on social media after the event, spearheaded by President\u00a0Donald J. Trump<\/a>, which featured the repeated playing of\u00a0Creedence Clearwater Revival<\/a>\u2018s classic \u201cFortunate Son\u201d \u2014 a song that virtually the entire world knows by now was written during the Vietnam era as a slam against wealthy draft dodgers. The assumption being made by at least a few tweeters was that this had to be some kind of deliberate trolling of the president by someone on the music selection team who just has it in for him. Because if you were going to make a top 10 list of songs that Trump should not want to have played at any of his events \u2014 but most of all not at a\u00a0military-themed ceremony<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 \u201cFortunate Son\u201d would certainly be No. 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, in fact, no less a figure than the song\u2019s author, John Fogerty<\/a> (a military veteran), directly made the connection between Trump and the rich kids who got out of the draft that he was writing about back in the day. \u201cIt seems like he is<\/em> probably the Fortunate Son,\u201d Fogerty said at the time.<\/a> There could hardly be a worse insult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popular on Variety<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s tantalizing to entertain the thought that someone from the left infiltrated the ranks of the president\u2019s music department to include the Creedence song as part of a parade in which active-duty members of the armed forces marched past the figure who has sometimes been chided as \u201cPresident Bone Spurs,\u201d in honor of the medical deferment that got Trump out of the draft. (He said in 2016 that the condition made it difficult for him to walk at the time he submitted his doctor\u2019s note, but \u201cover a period of time, it healed up.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming this as a near-subliminal diss would not quite<\/em> count as a covert operation on the level of Ukraine sneaking hundreds of drones into Russia for a coordinated attack\u2026 but close enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u201cinside jobs\u201d can also be accomplished through sheer cluelessness, and bumbling self-sabotage is probably the easiest explanation for the jaw-dropper of a music synch here. After all, there is a long history of Trump\u2019s campaigns and administrations using \u201cFortunate Son\u201d \u2014 mostly before Fogerty made headlines five years ago saying he wrote it as a slam against people like Trump, but also since. Either Trump\u2019s music people stuck their fingers in their ears as people pointed out that use of the Creedence song just created fresh opportunities for the world to be reminded that he was able to avoid military service\u2026 or else they have just soldiered on with it \u2014 so to speak \u2014 in a \u201cFuck you, I won\u2019t do what you tell me\u201d sort of way, imagining that they could bring everyone around to thinking that the song will just have positive connotations from here on out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fogerty made it clear enough when he made his statement about Trump\u2019s use of \u201cFortunate Son\u201d in 2020: \u201cRecently, the president has been using my song \u2018Fortunate Son\u2019 for his political rallies, which I find confounding, to say the least. So I thought I\u2019d explain a little bit about what \u2018Fortunate Son\u2019 is about.\u201d He explained that he \u201cwrote the song back in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War. By the time I wrote the song, I already had been drafted and had served in the military, and I\u2019ve been a lifelong supporter of our guys and gals in the military, probably because of that experience, of course. Anyway, back in those days we still had a draft. And something I was very upset about was the fact that people of privilege \u2014 in other words, rich people, or people that had position \u2014 could use that to avoid the draft and not be taken into the military. I found it very upsetting that such a thing could occur, and that\u2019s why I wrote \u2018Fortunate Son.\u2019 That\u2019s really what the whole intent of the song (was).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=ChrisWillman&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=e30%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1934039864728781127&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2025%2Fmusic%2Fcolumns%2Ftrump-fortunate-son-creedence-military-parade-draft-dodging-1236432479%2F&sessionId=d85a137eda423e4d54f93ef0b350256a9ad087ca&siteScreenName=variety&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=500px<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fogerty continued, \u201cThe very first lines of \u2018Fortunate Son\u2019 are: \u2018Some folks are born made to wave the flag, oooh, they\u2019re red white and blue \/ But when the band plays \u201cHail to the Chief,\u201d they point the cannon at you.\u2019 Well, that\u2019s exactly what happened recently in Lafayette Park when the president decided to take a walk across the park. He cleared out the area using federal troops so that he could stand in front of St. John\u2019s Church with a Bible.\u201d He concluded: \u201cIt\u2019s a song I could have written now. So I find it confusing, I would say, that the president has chosen to use my song for his political rallies, when in fact it seems like he is<\/em> probably the Fortunate Son.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=ChrisWillman&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=e30%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1934338383565983955&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2025%2Fmusic%2Fcolumns%2Ftrump-fortunate-son-creedence-military-parade-draft-dodging-1236432479%2F&sessionId=d85a137eda423e4d54f93ef0b350256a9ad087ca&siteScreenName=variety&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=500px<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The keepers of the parade doubled down on \u201cFortunate Son\u201d as part of Saturday\u2019s festivities. First, it was heard in an instrumental version as the soldiers marched, and later, a vocal rendition was heard coming from the stage in video shot at the landing spot for the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=ChrisWillman&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=e30%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1933950324416434187&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2025%2Fmusic%2Fcolumns%2Ftrump-fortunate-son-creedence-military-parade-draft-dodging-1236432479%2F&sessionId=d85a137eda423e4d54f93ef0b350256a9ad087ca&siteScreenName=variety&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=500px<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it seems that Trump\u2019s people have been impervious to complaints about their use of music, what was heard Saturday indicates that they have been reactive to anything that might land them legally in hot water. The versions of \u201cFortunate Son\u201d and other songs at the parade were cover versions \u2014 live or re-recorded \u2014 that avoid running afoul of not having procured a license to use the original master recordings. This was the case at the GOP convention last summer, as well, where, at last, no one had to wonder why \u201cYou Can\u2019t Always Get What You Want\u201d was being used without permission again, and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as for why Trump\u2019s circle would deliberately want to use even a cover version of a song that virtually shouts, \u201cHey, remember a long time ago when there were people saying the president was a privileged chicken? Can we start that up again?\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the very least, it is the best possible illustration we\u2019ve yet had of the =death of irony. Or, at most, the Trump team has a sleeper cell in their employ, setting him up. If that\u2019s too high a level of intrigue to be true, we can probably just assume that this points to everyone involved with this bone-spurred \u2014 sorry, bone-headed \u2014 move falling into a category of artistic appreciation best summed up by the late Leonard Cohen:You don\u2019t really care for music, do ya?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Chris Willman June 15, 2025 (Variety.cm) Was the music for Saturday\u2019s military parade in Washington, D.C. covertly programmed by the \u201cNo Kings\u201d movement? That\u2019s the question some were asking on social media after the event, spearheaded by President\u00a0Donald J. Trump, which featured the repeated playing of\u00a0Creedence Clearwater Revival\u2018s classic \u201cFortunate… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41954,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41953\/revisions\/41954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}