Why Donald Trump loves YMCA: The 1970s hit is topping charts again

Young man, there’s a place you can go
I said, young man, when you’re short on your dough
You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find
Many ways to have a good time.
It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.
It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A…
All millenials and boomers have grooved to this classic 1970s disco anthem at the club at some point in their life. After 40 years, this song is topping the charts again. And who do we thank – Donald Trump.
The song became a campaign staple of Donald Trump. The US President-elect played the 1978 gay anthem at almost all of his events. The song resonated with his supporters at anti-lockdown protests and MAGA (Make America Great Again) events. He even had the song play when he was departing from the White House at the end of his presidency.
YMCA saw a sharp rise in popularity, with Google searches skyrocketing, listenership on last.fm tripling, and, for the first time, topping a Billboard sales chart, NBC News reported.
YMCA reappeared in the top 15 songs on the Billboard dance/electronic sales chart at the end of October before climbing its way to the Number 1 spot during the week of November 17.
The last.fm data showed that, although interest has dropped off, as of last week the song was still up by 183 percent from late May, thanks to the apparent ‘Trump effect’.
Donald Trump first adopted the song during his Covid-19 recovery and introduced the song at his rallies in 2020. He could be seen dancing to it with fists in the air at the end of his events.
“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.”
Last he was seen grooving to this song was with Elon Musk at a Thanksgiving dinner at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida on Thursday. In the clip, Elon Musk and Donald Trump could be seen having a blast dancing to the tunes of the song.
Village People released the song YMCA in October 1978. It is about the nonprofit Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the community centers it runs in many US cities.
The song’s lyrics contain multiple double entendres on gay male life, hence its popularity within the LGBTQ+ community. However, Village People member Felipe Rose told HuffPost in 2014 that there was nothing intentionally gay about the track.
Despite the ideological contradictions of the song being associated with LGBTQ+ communities, YMCA’s infectious beat and catchy tune seems to evoke a sense of nostalgia and a carefree spirit, resonating beyond its original meaning.
In February 2020, the band granted the Trump campaign permission to use their music, but by June, they requested that the song no longer be played. VillagePeople frontman Victor Willis explained that the campaign rejected the request, claiming they had secured a political entities license that allowed them to use it.
In a statement to NBC News, Willis referred to Trump’s initial use of the song as a “nuisance.” “At one point, I thought he’d eventually stop playing it, but that never happened,” he said.