Soul singer Al Wilson had a hit with this anti-racist allegory before Donald Trump appropriated it 50 years later as an anti-immigration parable. Because he’s an idiot.

I never thought I would find myself in agreement with Donald Trump on anything, but it seems we both have a soft spot for this northern soul banger – albeit for very different reasons.

The Snake started life in 1963 when it was recorded by Oscar Brown, a black civil rights activist who wrote the lyric (originally a poem) about a woman who takes in a snake as an act of kindness, only for it to bite and kill her with its poison.

It was then recorded by Johnny Rivers in 1966 and again by Al Wilson two years later, when it became a US hit single, going on to become a northern soul classic, reaching the UK charts in 1975.

Brown wrote it – and Rivers and Wilson sang it – as a celebration of black culture and an allegory about racism but Donald Trump, who probably doesn’t know what an allegory is (or how to spell it), used it to demonise immigrants.

He adopted the lyrics in his 2016 presidential campaign as an anti-immigration parable, his interpretation being that if you let refugees in, your kindness will come back and bite you.

And despite being warned to cease and desist using it by not one but two of Brown’s seven children, Trump has defied them by continuing to use it.

Which demonstrates not only that Trump is a fucking idiot but also that he’s a racist arsehole – not that further proof was required. But he does know a good song when he hears it… even if he doesn’t understand it.