{"id":482306,"date":"2019-02-15T16:02:18","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T23:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=795536"},"modified":"2019-02-15T16:02:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T23:02:18","slug":"r-e-m-rebuke-trump-ghost-this-faker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/r-e-m-rebuke-trump-ghost-this-faker\/","title":{"rendered":"R.E.M. Rebuke Trump: \u2018Ghost This Faker!\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/REM-to-trump.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Earlier on Friday, President Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/1096485376087097344\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">tweeted out<\/a> a meme that juxtaposes his recent State of the Union address with sad-looking reaction shots of lawmakers including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris, over a soundtrack of R.E.M.\u2019s 1993 hit \u201cEverybody Hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The use of R.E.M.\u2019s music was presumably very much unauthorized, and in a statement, the band made their feelings quite clear: \u201cWorld Leader PRETEND!!! Congress, Media\u2013ghost this faker!!! Love, R.E.M.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.5217391304348\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\" xml:lang=\"en\">World Leader PRETEND!!! Congress, Media\u2013ghost this faker!!! Love, R.E.M.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 R.E.M. HQ (@remhq) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/remhq\/status\/1096522865711693826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">February 15, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>R.E.M. were one of rock\u2019s biggest and best bands in the years between 1980, when they\u00a0formed in Athens, Georgia, and 2011, when they amicably parted ways. Their commitment to progressive politics was well-known. The line \u201cWorld Leader Pretend\u201d is a reference to their 1988 song of that name, which includes the lyric, \u201cI raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t R.E.M.\u2019s first brush with the president. In the fall of 2015, frontman Michael Stipe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/r-e-m-to-trump-other-pols-go-f-k-yourselves-for-using-our-music-33452\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">chastised Trump<\/a>\u00a0and other politicians for using \u201cIt\u2019s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)\u201d at rallies: \u201cGo fuck yourselves, the lot of you \u2014 you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men. Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/rem-trump-everybody-hurts-response-795536\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier on Friday, President Trump tweeted out a meme that juxtaposes his recent State of the Union address with sad-looking reaction shots of lawmakers including Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris, over a soundtrack of R.E.M.\u2019s 1993 hit \u201cEverybody Hurts.\u201d The use of R.E.M.\u2019s music was presumably very much unauthorized, and in a statement, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-482306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 04:28:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}