R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe shares candid story about confronting Donald Trump - here’s the backstory

The story dates back to the 1990s. The telling of it happened in 2020.

Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in September 2020, Michael Stipe recounted a moment from decades earlier at Joe’s Pub. He had gone to support his friend Patti Smith at a small benefit concert. The room was intimate. Conversations carried.

According to Stipe, a “big, loud” businessman arrived with a date and was seated beside him in a VIP overflow booth. When Smith began performing, the chatter did not stop. Audience members turned around. The distraction grew obvious.

Stipe intervened. First politely, then firmly. “Shut up,” he recalled saying. The man stood, took his date, and walked out.

That man, Stipe revealed to Colbert, was Donald J. Trump.

R.E.M. against Trump

By 2020, the anecdote carried added weight. R.E.M. had objected repeatedly to Trump’s use of their songs at campaign rallies, including “It’s the End of the World” and “Everybody Hurts.” Irony, anyone?

Because venues often hold blanket licenses through performance rights organizations, artists can be limited to public objections rather than speedy legal remedies.

Stipe told Colbert that he and his former bandmates chose to “take the high road,” invoking a line associated with Michelle Obama.

And that’s how a fleeting clash in a small New York club became, years later, a symbolic footnote in the uneasy relationship between politics and popular music. How we now pine for Shiny Happy People.

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