Neil Young Sues Trump's Camp Again, Saying It Broke a 2020 Promise

His $10 million copyright suit says the Trump 47 Committee played 'Rockin' in the Free World' at an Ohio rally without a license.

Just before Donald Trump walked out to speak at an Oct. 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, his political committee had Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" played, Young says. That claim is at the center of a $10 million copyright lawsuit Young filed Monday against Trump 47 Committee Inc., Variety reported.

Young has been here before. The same 1989 song put the two sides in court six years ago, when Young's target was Trump's campaign corporation, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. The new complaint says that campaign raised no defense, settled soon after it was served and promised it would never use the song again without a license and Young's permission. According to Variety, the new filing doesn't say what that settlement paid or required beyond the promise.

Young brought the 2020 case together with his publishing company, Silver Fiddle Music. It also covered another of his songs, "Devil's Sidewalk," and he dismissed it in December 2020 once the settlement was reached, TheWrap reported. A promise not to play the song without permission is exactly what the new suit says the president's camp broke.

Trump himself isn't named as a defendant. The committee being sued is a joint fundraising operation Trump formed with the Republican National Committee, Rolling Stone reported, and Young filed in federal court in Virginia because that's where it's based. The complaint still makes it personal. It says Trump was "personally aware" during every rally this year that the song required a license, and that Young hadn't granted one and wouldn't.

Robert Besser and Scott Simmons, the lawyers who wrote Young's five-page complaint, point to Youngstown by name. It also alleges, on information and belief, that the committee has played the recording at other rallies ahead of the midterms. Young wants $10 million in damages for the plays so far and an injunction barring any further public performance for political purposes.

He's also claiming harm that a licensing fee wouldn't have covered. The suit says the plays imply Young supports Trump, an implication it says has hurt both his reputation and his brand.

That objection goes back more than a decade. Trump used the song when he announced his presidential run at Trump Tower in 2015. At the time, a Young spokesperson said the campaign wasn't authorized to use it and that Young, then a Canadian citizen, was backing Bernie Sanders, Rolling Stone reported. When Trump played it again in 2018, Young objected again on his website. He's now a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen and one of the most outspoken critics of the administration in entertainment, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

He isn't the only musician who has protested. Rolling Stone noted that artists from Rihanna to the estate of Tom Petty have publicly objected to Trump using their music. What sets Young apart is that he already has a settlement on paper, and he's back in court over it.

The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter or TheWrap. Rolling Stone said it also asked the committee and the RNC and got no immediate answer.

Young is 80. His complaint spends part of its five pages on the song's lyrics, which it says show a mother abandoning her baby and addicts in despair under a chorus of "savage irony." Its conclusion is shorter: the song, Young's lawyers wrote, "is the opposite of everything that Donald J. Trump stands for."

Source: Variety, retrieved October 27, 2026. Other sources: TheWrap, Rolling Stone, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter.