Dropkick Murphys to Union-busting Gov. Scott Walker: “Stop using our music…we literally hate you”

Kevin Solari

Don't any of the Wisconsin Governor's staffers know how to use Google? (Thomas Hawk / Flickr)

This past weekend, at the Iowa Freedom Summit, union-busting Gov. Scott Walker, who may be considering a push for a right-to-work law in Wisconsin, took the stage using Dropkick Murphys’ I’m Shipping Up to Boston” as his entry music. Although Walker may be a fan of the Boston celtic-punk group, the feeling is not mutual. In fact, they literally hate him.

The song, about a one-legged sailor searching for his missing wooden leg and originally written by Woody Guthrie (who was certainly no friend of politicians like Walker), is apparently a favorite of Wisconsin Republicans. Dropkick Murphys took issue with Senate candidate Jeff Fitzgerald using the song in 2012, saying on their Facebook page:

The stupidity and irony of this is laughable. A Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate - and crony of anti-Union Governor Scott Walker - using a Dropkick Murphys song as an intro is like a white supremacist coming out to gangsta rap. … We stand beside our Union and Labor brothers and sisters and their families in Wisconsin and all over the U.S!”

Dropkick Murphys’ disdain for Walker is hardly new. In 2011, during the protests against Scott Walker’s proposed Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill and its decidedly anti-worker provisions against collective bargaining, the band released Take em Down,” in solidarity with the protestors. Apparently none of Walker’s staffers thought to Google dropkick murphys scott walker” before picking the song. 

Please consider supporting our work.

I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.

Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.

Kevin is an educator and freelance writer in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinsolari_.
Illustrated cover of Gaza issue. Illustration shows an illustrated representation of Gaza, sohwing crowded buildings surrounded by a wall on three sides. Above the buildings is the sun, with light shining down. Above the sun is a white bird. Text below the city says: All Eyes on Gaza
Get 10 issues for $19.95

Subscribe to the print magazine.