President-elect Trump's election victory was also a win for the makers of his favorite campaign song. The Village People's "YMCA," which Trump has been playing and dancing to at rallies since 2020, rose steadily in the charts in the final weeks of the campaign and hit No. 1 in the Billboard dance/electronic sales chart on Nov. 17, the Telegraph reports. It's the first time the disco classic—which Trump has described as the "gay national anthem," per the Independent—has climbed higher than No. 2 since its release in 1978. Google searches for the song have also surged.
Village People lead singer Victor Willis, who co-wrote "YMCA," tells NBC News that he high-fived his wife after it hit No. 1. Willis OK'd the campaign's use of the song in early 2020, but he says the campaign didn't honor his request to stop using it in June that year. He says that's because the campaign obtained a political entities license to use the song. Willis says that when the group that manages the license asked if he wanted to cancel it, he told his wife, who manages the band, to say no because he had started "noticing some very good things started happening" as Trump continued to use it at rallies.
Willis tells NBC News that he initially saw Trump's use of the song as a "nuisance," adding: "At one point I thought he'd tire of the song. But that never happened." In fact, the New York Post reports that Trump and Elon Musk were seen singing and dancing to "YMCA" at a Mar-a-Lago Thanksgiving party Thursday night, though TMZ deems Musk's moves "pretty weak." (More The Village People stories.)
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