The Donald’s daughter-in-law has released a music video to show how excellently she karaokes

Lara Trump in the MV of her duet, Hero. Screen shot: TheRightViewwithLaraTrumpYouTube

By Ally Wei

The Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair has a lot of time in the middle of her father-in-law’s campaign season and madness. Lara Trump, married to Eric Trump, has recorded and released an original single, Hero, with an accompanying video, presumably to play at the next Donald Trump rally. The song is a tribute to firefighters (not the same as those Samantha Jones availed herself to in Sex and the City!). I am not aware that Mr Trump has courted the fire service or emergency first responders. Anyway, the song is penned by her singing partner, Florida-based Madeline Jaymes, and both croon in awe and admiration of firemen and their bravery. I suppose the intention is admirable, but—sorry—I cannot say the same about Mrs Trump’s warble.

I heard it this morning while cooking my breakfast of oats. And I thought, when her voice came on, it was mating season for the Asian Koel, again. She sings—let’s call it that for now—in lower registers, and sounds like her throat was stuck with a bicycle chain and she had to manage with it, locked to her larynx. I had to rush to my Google Nest Hub to be sure the old gal wasn’t expiring. Ms Jaymes is a reasonably listenable singer (if she participates in America’s Got Talent, she’ll pass the audition and make it to the live rounds, but after that, no one will remember her). And because she has a decent voice, Lara Trump’s contrasts harshly with hers. I have no idea why the RNC staffer thinks she has a vibrant voice, just as Donald Trump believes he has a veracious one.

Although she honours firemen and has made herself, through the song’s subject matter, MAGA-relatable, Lara Trump is unable to pull herself away from the glamourous front that so many of her fellow Republicans with some role related to the GOP or candidate is prone to present. To make sure that viewers of the MV get what she was singing about, she stood on a fire escape staircase, emoting to a wall. On the metal steps, with what could be Gotham behind her, she wore a slinky, one-shoulder satin gown in the colour of very discoloured gold. Her hair was clearly set, her make-up professionally done. Elsewhere in the video, firemen were doing rescue work in admittedly very staged setting that was on fire. She appeared to be admiring the rescuers in action, herself untouched by the flames, before going to a gala fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago. It is amazing that Donald Trump is so averse to what he has called the “fake media”, but is not at all ill-disposed to visages that are clearly phony.

Actually, this is not Lara Trump’s first music release, I was surprised to learn. This time last year, to kick-start her singing career, she sang Tom Petty’s 1989 track I Won’t Back Down. The song choice seemed to be made in desperate response to the criticisms, even derision, she had been getting as she joined the GOP’s main man on the fraught campaign trail. Or, possibly, out of the goodness of her heart, to provide the soundtrack to her father-in-law’s massively-attended events since so many artistes have refused to let Donald Trump’s campaign play their songs, however suitable, including, ironically, the estate of Tom Petty, for I Won’t Back Down. Lara Trump’s version was acoustic and anemic, and somewhat second-string-sounding in its production construct, made worse by vocals that grated. She clearly did not sound good then, she certainly does not sound better now.