It’s been used by former President Bill Clinton, Greenpeace, and Vice President JD Vance. It has inspired, and annoyed, generations of music fans.
It’s “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac. The single, which encourages listeners to keep “thinking about tomorrow” over a driving, contagious beat, was first released as a single in 1977.
In his new book Don’t Stop: Why We (Still) Love Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, music journalist Alan Light charts how “Don’t Stop” has been loved, hated, and co-opted by politicians for decades.
In my opinion, “Don’t Stop” transcends politics and is just about believing in the future. Country singer Ian Munsick, interviewed by Light in the book, nails it: “I remember it like it was yesterday. It was in my mom’s car, driving to elementary school. She would drop me off every morning on her way to work. This had to be probably second grade, so I was seven years old. My two older brothers were also in the car, but I always got to choose what we listened to on the way to school, being the youngest and the most spoiled. And I would always play ‘Don’t Stop’ every day on the way to school. That was really the first record that was stuck in my head as a young child, and it made a huge impression on me. The chorus, the optimism of the lyrics — we don’t really have a lot of music like that anymore. It’s very easy to be corny and be optimistic, but it’s hard to be cool and be optimistic, and that’s cool and optimistic.”
Grammy-winning mastering engineer Emily Lazar has similar feelings. “‘Don’t Stop’ is childhood ’70s in the back of the station wagon,” she says, “going to whatever sports practice, my dad with the velour bell bottoms and sideburns.”
However, the song became something different to audiences in 1992, when it was made an official anthem of the Bill Clinton presidential campaign. As Lazar puts it, “Now you hear ‘Don’t Stop’ and everyone thinks about Clinton, right? I don’t, but it changes the story.”
Not everyone has been happy with the liberal appropriation of the song. “When it blasted from the TV as the balloons announcing Clinton’s nomination rained from the ceiling of Madison Square Garden,” Sam Adams wrote in Slate, “it felt like a cultural watershed, a sign that an optimistic, exuberant new generation was ready to take the reins. But that moment, seared into the nation’s memory, also yoked that song, and the album it came from, to the fortunes of the Clintons and boomers writ large. And as the boomers got older and more disappointing, so did Fleetwood Mac.”
Now it seems like every political camp wants a piece of “Don’t Stop.” Before her death in 2022, Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie gave the environmental activists Greenpeace the rights to use the song. In 2023, a new version was introduced as the theme of the organization’s latest call to action. It was accompanied by a video produced by Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen.
“We’re confronted with the reality of our situation: greedy corporations are partying like there’s no tomorrow, and if they keep acting like that, there won’t be one,” read a statement from Greenpeace. The film aired at the Glastonbury Festival, accompanied by tote bags reading “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.”
Even conservatives have made use of “Don’t Stop.”
In July 2024, at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Ohio, then-Sen. JD Vance followed his speech with an instrumental rendition of “Don’t Stop.”
“By choosing ‘Don’t Stop,’ Vance appears to be aiming to evoke a sense of optimism and unity,” noted USA Today, arguing that the song’s history with the Clinton campaign “tied [it] to a period of hope and renewal in American politics.”
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In Don’t Stop, Alan Light is clear that he thinks Vance should keep his hands off the song: “Was this move purely designed to troll the Democratic Party, usurping one of its signature moments and shoving it in their faces? Or do MAGA Republicans — who, from their slogan on down, literally can’t stop thinking about yesterday — really believe they can convey a sense of hope and positivity? Make America Great Again? Christine (who, like her mate Stevie [Nicks], was one of those ‘childless cat ladies’ Vance warned us about) was saying something quite different. Don’t you look back. Yesterday’s gone.”
Now I know why punk rock happened.