‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ as a Beto O’Rourke anthem? Dee Snider offers an all-star band
Dee Snider has joined the Beto O’Rourke campaign.
The curly-haired star of the 1980s Twisted Sister rock anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” saw a video of O’Rourke shouting an expletive at a dissenter in the crowd Wednesday in Mineral Wells and immediately offered his song and his services.
“I would sing ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ for @BetoORourke’s campaign,” Snider wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. That was just as two videos of O”Rourke’s outburst began a climb toward an audience that reached more than 12 million views by Friday.
On Thursday, O’Rourke’s campaign played the song as his walk-off music as a packed crowd of more than 1,000 filed out of the Round-Up Inn in Fort Worth.
Snider almost seemed disbelieving at first.
I would sing "We're Not Gonna Take It" for @BetoORourke's campaign. https://t.co/LfL7wJUUD1
— Dee Snider (@deesnider) August 11, 2022
“Seriously?” he replied in Twitter.
Seriously, I replied.
He hit the “caps lock.”
“SO DAMN GLAD!” he wrote: “I wasn’t kidding when I said if you are pro-choice you have my blessing to use ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ as your song. Glad @BetoORourke took me up on my offer. Next we have to figure out when we’ll play it LIVE!”
https://t.co/faUz0bHmPA pic.twitter.com/EFBkGti74v
— Talking With Beto (@talkingwithbeto) August 12, 2022
Within minutes, Snider announced that lead guitarist Alex Skolnick of Testament fame and Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns would join him.
“We got our bass player,” Snider wrote — “it’s @BetoORourke!!! He plays bass! Now we need a famous drummer. ... “
O’Rourke joined Willie Nelson on stage at his July 4 show in Austin, playing Nelson’s hit “On the Road Again” and also with his band on “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
Snider’s 1984 song, has been a political hot potato since 2017,. when the Illinois singer told then-President Donald Trump to stop using it at events. The official video has been played 67 million times on YouTube.
Snider, now 67, also tweeted support for Arizona Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs, complaining that Republican Kari Lake plays it at rallies.
“Hey idiots!” he wrote. “Read the 1st line: ‘We’ve got the right to choose!’ “
In 1985, Snider appeared in full leather and long blond curls before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to oppose censorship and “parental advisory” music warning labels.
O’Rourke, 49, played in a 1990s El Paso punk band called Foss.
When “We’re Not Gonna Take It” hit the “Billboard” Hot 100 chart, he was 11.
