President-elect Donald Trump made the disco classic “Y.M.C.A.” a staple at his rallies during his past two campaigns. And new data shows that, much like Trump’s political fortunes, interest in the song is on the upswing.
The 1978 hit by the Village People has had a busy month four decades later, with skyrocketing search interest on Google, a tripling of measured listenership on the song-tracking site last.fm and, finally, the topping of one Billboard sales chart for the first time.
Trump began dancing to the song at the end of his rallies in 2020, bouncing to the beat with his fists poking at the air.
“You know what gets ’em rockin? ‘Y.M.C.A.,’” Trump said on a podcast in 2022. “‘Y.M.C.A.’ gets people up and it gets them moving.”
The dance caught on outside of Trump’s political orbit this year, when athletes began mimicking his moves when they celebrated on the field.
The song, from the Village People’s album “Cruisin,’” is purportedly about the nonprofit Young Men’s Christian Association and the community centers it runs in many U.S. cities. The song’s lyrics run thick with double entendres on gay male life and has since become a gay anthem — although Village People member Felipe Rose told HuffPost in 2014 that there’s nothing gay about the song, and people who spent time at the YMCA in Manhattan, which reportedly inspired the song, said that what happened in that building was more complex than what the lyrics imply.
The song is also a staple at sporting events around the country, including in New York, where Trump’s beloved New York Yankees play it during the sixth inning.
Data from Google Trends shows more searches for the song this month than in any month in the search engine’s published records.
And “Y.M.C.A.” reappeared in the top 15 songs on the Billboard dance/electronic sales chart at the end of October before it climbed to the top the week of Nov. 17.
Village People lead singer and “Y.M.C.A.” co-writer Victor Willis learned the song hit No. 1 when his wife showed him the charts, after which they high-fived each other, Willis said.
The Village People have had an on-again, off-again relationship with Trump and his use of “Y.M.C.A.” at rallies. In February 2020, the band OK’ed Trump’s use of its music. Then, in June 2020, Willis asked Trump not to play the song — a request Trump didn’t honor, because, according to Willis, the Trump campaign had obtained a political entities license that allowed it to use it.
Willis described Trump’s initial use of the song as a “nuisance,” telling NBC News in a written statement: “At one point I thought he’d tire of the song. But that never happened.”
Willis said that at one point the music industry group that manages the song’s license asked him and his wife — also the band’s manager — whether they wanted to cancel the license.
“I told my wife to tell them no,” Willis said, “because by that time I started noticing some very good things started happening as [Trump] continued to use the song.”
