Rock legend Neil Young has filed a $10 million lawsuit against a Trump fundraising committee over the use of his song “Rockin’ in the Free World” at a rally in Ohio this month.
According to the five-page file obtained by rolling stoneTrump was “personally aware that a license would be required” to play the song at an event, and he also knew that Young “did not have and would not grant the required license.” The unauthorized use occurred despite an earlier lawsuit and a 2020 settlement in which Trump allegedly agreed to never use Young’s music without permission, the new complaint states. (Trump is not named as an individual defendant in Monday’s complaint.)
“’Rockin’ in the Free World’ is a scathing anthem that contrasts the empty promises of American political rhetoric with the harsh realities faced by the poor, the homeless and the forgotten,” Young and his lawyers, Robert Besser and Scott Simmons, wrote in the new complaint. “The lyrics paint vivid portraits of a mother abandoning her baby, drug addicts lost in despair, trash piling up in the shadows of prosperity, while the repeated refrain delivers a savage irony, celebrating a freedom that is clearly not shared by all.”
They added that the 1989 song, titled The Rolling Stones best vintage rock song of 2026, “is the opposite of everything Donald J. Trump stands for.”
There was no immediate response to a request for comment sent to the White House, the Trump 47 Committee and the Republican National Committee, which partnered with Trump to create the joint fundraising committee.
Legal wrangling between Young and Trump dates back to 2015, when Trump used the track during his now-infamous Trump Tower announcement that he was running for president. Young immediately condemned the decision.
“Donald Trump was not authorized to use ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ in his presidential candidacy announcement,” a spokesperson for Young said in a statement at the time. “Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.”
When Trump played the song again in 2018, Young objected again. “I then asked him, in a widely shared public letter, to cease and desist,” Young wrote on his website at the time. “However, he chose not to listen to my request, just as he chose not to listen to the many American voices calling on him to stop his constant lies, to stop his petty and nasty name-calling and bullying, to stop pushing his dangerous, defamatory and hateful rhetoric.”
Young, 80, filed the latest suit in federal court in Virginia, where the fundraising committee is based. He said the song was played Oct. 12 at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where Trump gave a speech.
Young is far from the only artist to challenge Trump over the use of music at his political events. The White Stripes, Rihanna, Axl Rose, Pharrell Williams, Linkin Park and the estates of Tom Petty and Sinéad O’Connor have all publicly objected to his use of their songs.
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