Donald Trump’s use of Sinead O’Connor’s music wasn’t just wrong – it felt violent

If we know one thing about Donald J Trump, it is his predilection for seeing something he wants and attempting to grab it. I picture the 45th president – and possibly the 47th, too – a pink-fisted toddler, sticky with rage, forever reaching out towards pussy, elections, classified files; foundation funds, Theresa May’s hand, the fundamental concept of truth. For much of his life, the approach has served him well. But of late, the path between Donald and his desires has been obstructed by a bothersome array of legal cases and an FBI investigation. Then, this week, the presidential candidate encountered his latest hindrance: the Irish singer Sinead O’Connor.

Last month, Trump held a campaign rally in Maryland. It was much as one might imagine such an event — a ballroom at a waterfront resort, the type of crowd familiar to a Conservative Political Action Conference, and a dazzling selection of Maga merch. The only aberration came in the choice of piped pre-speech music. There, somewhere between Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds”, the tannoy played O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U”.

O’Connor died last summer, but both her estate and her record label, Chrysalis, were quick to condemn the use of the song. O’Connor, they said in a joint statement, would have been “disgusted, hurt and insulted” to be included on a Trump playlist. She had lived, they said, “by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness, and decency toward her fellow human beings”. She had even described Trump as a “biblical devil”.

O’Connor is not alone in the distance she wanted to keep from Trump. Other artists, including Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Rihanna, Tom Petty, Phil Collins and the Village