Daughters of Oscar Brown Jr. Say President Trump Twisted Message of Father’s Poem: ‘It’s Absolutely Wrong’
The Daughter's of singer/activist Oscar Brown Jr. took to CNN Tonight on Monday (Feb. 26) to explain that President Donald Trump's use of the lyrics to soul singer Brown's 1966 song "The Snake" in speeches is a negative twist on their father's creative intention.
The 1966 record was most recently used in Trump's speech at the Conservative Political Actions Committee on Friday (Feb. 23) in which the POTUS used the lyrics to seemingly create an allegory about immigration laws, claiming that immigrants who are permitted to enter the countries may ultimately cause a negative impact.
More from Billboard
"Oscar Brown Jr.'s words are being stolen to promote his hate message and intolerance," Africa Brown told CNN . "And it's absolutely wrong."
The song, quite similar to an old Aesop's fable, is about a woman who finds a frozen snake, brings it back home to nurse it back to health and is subsequently bitten and killed by the snake after saving its life. Trump used the song as a way to promote his immigration platform throughout his 2016 campaign trail and in speeches along the way. In Trump's repeated telling on the stump the United States is the trusting woman who innocently gives refuge to the snake, which represents immigrants who are coiled and ready for a deadly strike.
"The elephant in the room is that Trump is the living embodiment of the snake that my father wrote about in that song," Brown said. "It's a political agenda that deals with separatism, racism, sexism, and it's kind of thing that's polar opposite to what Oscar Brown Jr. was about," added sister Maggie Brown. "And so, to actually quote his words verbatim every time, pulling it out of his breast pocket as if it's this coveted thing that makes him a rock star."
As the Washington Post described the dramatic reading: "For someone who is not known as a man of letters, this is one of Trump's only literary touchstones. It is a crowd-pleaser, part xenophobic fearmongering, part tale told by Grandpa."
During the CPAC speech, Trump's wind-up to his "Snake" bit included his description of the gang MS-13 as "animals" and immigrants as "horrendous." He asked the crowd if anyone heard him do "The Snake" — written by activist and former Communist Party member Brown — during the campaign. "Because I had five people outside say, 'Could you do "The Snake?" 'I said, 'Well, people have heard it. Who hasn't heard "The Snake?"' 'You should read it anyway.' Let's do it anyway." ( Click here to read the full lyrics to the "The Snake.")
Check out the video here and listen to the original version of "The Snake" below.
Best of Billboard
