Taylor Swift, Lee Greenwood, and Brat: How artists have provided the soundtrack to the 2024 presidential election in Pa.

When fans of former President Donald Trump walked into a convention center in Montgomery County earlier this week, anticipating a Q&A session, they probably weren’t expecting a half-hour music listening party.

“Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music … Who the hell wants to hear questions?” said Trump, whose impromptu DJ set was preceded by two medical emergencies in the crowd.

Two plays of “Ave Maria” and a handful of favorite songs later, the night at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks became one of the election’s viral clips. Democrats questioned his mental acuity. His supporters praised his spontaneity and patriotism.

But beyond that moment, music has played a galvanizing role on the Pennsylvania campaign trail in 2024, providing a soundtrack to the candidates’ rallies, offering high-profile endorsements, and creating spaces to encourage and mobilize civic engagement, including registering young people to vote at recent Philadelphia concerts.

“Freedom” by Beyoncé has been a signature anthem for Vice President Kamala Harris, while Trump’s gone with Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A,” which the country singer performed at the former president’s Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pa., where he returned to the site of the July 13 assassination attempt.

Singers have a history of using their voices — both musically and not — to wade into presidential politics. At his concert at the Wells Fargo Center on Oct. 13, Stevie Wonder condemned Trump’s false claims about Haitian immigrants during the September presidential debate in Philadelphia.

“I know not to go there, but were they eating dogs? C’mon, lets keep it real,” said the 74-year old singer-songwriter, who also promoted love, understanding, and voter registration on the Philly tour stop. He has endorsed Harris.

Candidates’ connections to music and artists have proved important over the years — even though celebrity endorsements don’t typically matter much — it’s a way for campaigns to stake their claim in pop culture and cater to their bases.

Fleetwood Mac set the modern standard for the union of music and politics when former President Bill Clinton used their song “Don’t Stop” in his 1992 presidential bid (and thus reuniting the on again, off again classic rock band for the next 20 years).

Singer and performer Al Jolson was among the first stars to stump for a presidential candidate, endorsing Warren Harding for president in 1920. Then came Frank Sinatra for Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, Sammy Davis Jr. for Richard M. Nixon.

And in 2024, there’s Pennsylvania-born pop star, Taylor Swift, who for months had fans and pundits alike wondering if she would be endorsing Harris.

When the Berks County native dropped her endorsement (signed: “Childless Cat Lady”) after the presidential debate in Philadelphia, the Harris camp sold friendship bracelets — a nod to a tradition at Swift’s “The Eras Tour.” More recently the vice president referenced Swift’s “Shake It Off” from her album, 1989, in a video for Thursday night’s Al Smith dinner.

Charli XCX’s Brat, which Vogue defined as the album of the summer, inspired the branding for the early days of the Harris campaign as the vice president ascended to the Democratic nomination. After XCX said that Harris was “Brat,” young people started making memes, and at Harris’ August rally in Philadelphia debuting running-mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, some attendees were clad in Brat-themed attire.

At that same rally at Temple University’s Liacouras Center, the Minnesota governor talked about someone that both he and the Philadelphia audience could definitely relate to — The Boss.

Walz praised Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, then burnished his own bona fides, by saying “There is no one you would rather go to a Springsteen concert in Jersey with than him!”

Trump has had his own rock-n-roll moments, just days after surviving an assassination attempt at his first rally in Butler, Pa., in July. Kid Rock, dressed in all-black sans a gold cross hanging around his neck and a belt buckle, exhorted the audience to raise their fists in the air before he launched into his electric guitar-driven “American Bad Ass” with new lyrics referencing Trump.

Trump has also received the endorsements of artists from a variety of musical genres including Kanye West, Jason Aldean, DaBaby, and Kodak Black to name a few, according to, according to Billboard.

The playlist that blares from speakers before Trump rallies is eclectic. But some of those choices have brought pushback. Rufus Wainwright said he was “horrified” that Trump used his cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during his Oaks musical tangent, resulting in a cease-and-desist demand from the Cohen estate.

Several artists over the years have barred Trump — and many other political candidates — from using their music for any political purposes.

The Trump playlist seemingly spans every genre under the sun, from Broadway show tunes to hard rock headbangers, as his followers wait for the former president to take the stage.

Even at home in Mar-a-Lago, the former president loves playing DJ — called “DJ T” among club regulars — blaring his favorites from his iPad.

Rallygoers will almost certainly hear the Village People’s “YMCA.” But they may also hear “My Way” by Frank Sinatra, “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses, and “Tiny Dancer” by Elton John.

At his rally in Harrisburg at the end of July, Trump’s playlist went from “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from The Lion King to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen.”

And on his personal playlist, Trump favors Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” and Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain,” among other tunes.

Music has been found to motivate young voters. Earlier this month, the nonprofit “DJ to the Polls” spun tracks around Philadelphia to encourage Gen-Z to cast their ballots.

HeadCount, a non-partisan youth voter registration organization, partners with big name artists and travels with them on tour to “help spread the word of democracy,” according to the HeadCount website. The organization focuses on “where there’s the opportunity for the youth vote to have the largest impact,” said Tappan Vickrey, senior director of programming and strategy at HeadCount. Pennsylvania is one of those places.

HeadCount appeared at Quakertown-native Sabrina Carpenter’s show at the Wells Fargo Center on Oct. 8, Maggie Rogers’ show at the center on Oct. 15, and plans to be at Clairo’s show at Franklin Music Hall on Nov. 1-2.

“When you go into a show, you are in a place where people have at least one shared interest with you. You are all there because you love live music, or you’re all there because you love the artist … that creates a commonality that opens the door to have a conversation that can be meaningful and empowering around democracy,” Vickrey said.

The organization also partnered with Gracie Abrams, a music industry ingenue who made her final stop of her North American “The Secret of Us” tour on Oct. 15 at The Met before joining Swift as the opening act for “The Eras Tour” on Friday night.

Abrams gave a shoutout to HeadCount and, like many of the artists before her, used her platform to urge the crowd of mostly young women to vote.

“Voting matters now in a way that it has not yet in our lifetime,” Abrams said, “and we have to decide if we’re going to control our own destiny or if we’re going to let a bunch of men who don’t share our values do that. This is me stealing your time and begging you to please make a voting plan.”