--- title: Stephen Colbert Makes Parody Brett Kavanaugh UB40 Song description: Stephen Colbert had jokes after it was revealed that Brett Kavanaugh got into a bar fight after attending a UB40 concert. canonical: https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-03T15:34:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:13.916Z og:title: Stephen Colbert Made a Musical Kavanaugh Parody og:description: Stephen Colbert had jokes after it was revealed that Brett Kavanaugh got into a bar fight after attending a UB40 concert. og:url: https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd50b389c913e3f78/69893bb2656a3f75d6bd5a27/stephen-colbert-brett-kavanaugh-ub40-parody-song.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stephen Colbert Made a Musical Kavanaugh Parody twitter:description: Stephen Colbert had jokes after it was revealed that Brett Kavanaugh got into a bar fight after attending a UB40 concert. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd50b389c913e3f78/69893bb2656a3f75d6bd5a27/stephen-colbert-brett-kavanaugh-ub40-parody-song.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Stephen Colbert Made a Musical Kavanaugh Parody > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f669488f-7dc4-4d0e-8982-f5b2a6ba45a3&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 3, 2018 3:34 PM UTC  WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 27: Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. A professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo By Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images) WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 27: Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. A professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo By Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images) Pool—Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 3, 2018 3:34 PM UTC [Stephen Colbert](http://time.com/5412526/stephen-colbert-jeff-flake-face-kavanaugh-hearing/) had jokes after a former classmate alleged that [Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh](http://time.com/5408177/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-testimony/) got into a bar fight after attending a UB40 concert in 1985, while he was a student at Yale University. In a clip aired on Tuesday night, Colbert and the _Late Show_ team parodied UB40’s hit, “Red Red Wine,” with lyrics that reference the controversy surrounding allegations of drunken behavior, along with interpolated clips of Kavanaugh’s testimony in the song. The song comes after Monday’s reports that inspired the parody; according to a report by the [_New York Times_](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/us/politics/kavanaugh-bar-fight.html), the fight allegedly started when Kavanaugh and friends thought they spotted the lead singer of UB40 at a bar, a misunderstanding that escalated. For their part, UB40 seems to want no part in the Kavanaugh drama, taking to their Twitter to address the renewed focus on their band. > [](https://twitter.com/UB40/status/1047107820380934145) Watch the full clip of the Kavanaugh “Red Red Wine” parody below. > [](https://twitter.com/colbertlateshow/status/1047249371929219072) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/"},"headline":"Stephen Colbert Made a Musical Kavanaugh Parody","datePublished":"2018-10-03T15:34:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:13.916Z","description":"In the style of UB40","url":"https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Late Night Television"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd50b389c913e3f78/69893bb2656a3f75d6bd5a27/stephen-colbert-brett-kavanaugh-ub40-parody-song.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd50b389c913e3f78/69893bb2656a3f75d6bd5a27/stephen-colbert-brett-kavanaugh-ub40-parody-song.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee","caption":"Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee","creditText":"Pool—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5413817/stephen-colbert-made-kavanaugh-ub40-parody/","name":"Stephen Colbert Made a Musical Kavanaugh Parody"}}]}] ```