In 1971, Don McLean wrote an eight-and-a-half-minute elegy for the American soul. “American Pie” begins with a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield in 1959 that killed rock and rollers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper.
But the song was never really about the crash. It was about what happened after: the loss of innocence, the corruption of joy, the day a culture stops believing in its own music. McLean called it the day the music died.
Almost 55 years later, Donald Trump is living his own bye-bye Miss American Pie moment. And it’s unfolding, with exquisite irony, on the National Mall.
If the music died in a cornfield in February of 1959, it’s going to die again on the Mall — albeit ever so briefly — in June, 2026.
This week, the White House-affiliated “Freedom 250” organization unveiled the lineup for the Great American State Fair, a 16-day patriotic extravaganza on the Mall running June 25 through July 10, billed as America’s grand 250th birthday party.
This is the same organization responsible for the blood-and-guts UFC match on the White House lawn on June 14.
The roster included Martina McBride, Young MC, Morris Day and the Time, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory, Bret Michaels, Milli Vanilli, Flo Rida, and Vanilla Ice.
The lineup was announced Wednesday. By Friday, it was, as Tom Petty might sing, free fallin’ with half of those slated pulling out. And panic set-in.
Morris Day and the Time dropped out within hours, posting simply: “It’s a no for me.” Young MC followed, writing that “the artists were never told about any political involvement with the event.”
Milli Vanilli’s surviving original vocalist said he was “shocked” to see the group’s name on the bill. Then the headliner, Martina McBride, walked, saying she’d been misled about the event’s nature.
Of the performers featured on the original promotional poster, only two are now understood to still be taking part. They’re not worth mentioning.
But never fear! Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday and announced a replacement act.
“DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!” He wrote.
Third-rate? Well, he’s right, but if they are, why were they invited in the first place?
None of these withdrawals should be surprising. This is the defining pattern of the entire Trump era. Musicians don’t want to be associated with him. They never have.
The list of artists who have sent Trump cease-and-desist letters, demanded he pull their music from rallies, or publicly recoiled at the association reads like a Hall of Fame roll call: Neil Young. The Rolling Stones. Aerosmith — twice. R.E.M., whose Michael Stipe called the unauthorized use of his music “a moronic charade.”
There were others, ABBA. Celine Dion. Beyoncé. Foo Fighters. The estate of Sinéad O’Connor. Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty.
And then there was the “day the music died” at the Kennedy Center: February 9, 2025, when Trump appointed himself as chairman, and then went on to add his name to the monument for President John F. Kennedy.
Thank the Lord that a whip-smart federal judge on Friday had the good sense and decency to tell Trump to end another of his moronic charades and take his name off the building asap.
But once Trump effectively took over the Kennedy Center like a mad dictator, what followed was a massive cultural exodus.
One of the first to cancel was a touring production of Hamilton. Then, Folk singer Rhiannon Giddens announced she could not “in good conscience” play there.
Jazz pianist Chuck Redd, who had led the center’s annual Christmas Eve “Jazz Jams” since 2006, canceled the moment he saw Trump’s name on the building.
The Cookers called off their New Year’s Eve gig. Doug Varone and Dancers said their cancellation was “financially devastating but morally exhilarating.” Renowned composer Philip Glass followed, withdrawing the world premiere of his Symphony No. 15 (“Lincoln”) from the National Symphony Orchestra.
Hamilton. Folk. Jazz. Dance. Opera. Country. Symphony. Every genre, every discipline, walking away from a stage that once represented the summit of American artistic life.
This week, while performers were also furiously dropping out of the Great American State Fair, someone else was furiously going after the Trump administration.
Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” American tour, a sold-out, three-hour-a-night referendum on Trump’s America, with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine as guest guitarist, wrapped its American leg Wednesday night in Washington, D.C.
At Nationals Park, Springsteen used the capital stop to directly confront Trump.
He opened with a declaration: “Our democracy, our constitution, our rule of law are being challenged right now as never before by a reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous president.”
He led the crowd in “ICE out!” chants, then bellowed: “Let them hear you at the ... White House!”
Trump responded on Truth Social by calling Springsteen a “dried out prune” of a rocker.
But Trump, the real dried prune, is desperately trying to control the musical soul of the country while the music community refuses to sing along. Not at the Kennedy Center, not at his rallies and not at the Great American State Fair.
The month-long event this summer was supposed to celebrate 250 years of American freedom. Instead, it’s being abandoned by B-list talent in favor of a wannabe authoritarian dictator. The irony is as rich as it is offensive.
Don McLean drove his Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. When Trump drives to the National Mall next month, he’s going to see that it will be dry too.