| Friday, July 11, 2008 |
18:57 - Maybe they were doing them a favor
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/07/10/bmabbab110.xml
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This is kinda amusing:
Behind in the polls, John McCain is hoping that voters will take a chance on him.
The 71-year-old first revealed himself to be a fan of exquisite Scandinavian pop when asked about the contents of his iPod. "Dare I say Abba?" he replied. "Everybody says, 'Ugh. Abba.' Why is that? Abba was the largest-selling record act ever. Nobody likes them, but they sold more records than anybody in the history of the world, including the Beatles. But everybody hates them. You're a no-class guy if you like Abba. Why does everybody go see Mamma Mia!? Hypocrisy! Rank hypocrisy! I'm not embarrassed to say I like Abba."
That's pretty funny. I gotta like a guy who'll lay it on the line like that. But later in the article, there's this:
McCain has been having problems with his campaign songs: many musicians hide behind the couch when he comes calling for permission. Blue-collar rocker John Mellencamp sent him cease-and-desist letters when he found out the Republican hopeful was using two of his songs, Our Country and Pink Houses, on the campaign trail.
This is consistent with how most rock acts view the Republican Party. During the 1986 Presidential election, Bruce Springsteen ordered Ronald Reagan to stop using his song Born in the USA at rallies, and during the 2000 election, Tom Petty did likewise when he found out George W Bush was using his I Won't Back Down.
Has anybody pointed out that all these songs are by no means jingoistic or nationalistic in nature? They all have refrains that sound like they want to be treated as national anthems, but if you listen even a little bit carefully to the verses you realize that they're tongue-in-cheek and sarcastic and, in many cases, downright nasty:
Theres a black man with a black cat
Living in a black neighbourhood
Hes got an interstate runnin through his front yard
You know, he think, that hes got it so good
And theres a woman in the kitchen cleanin up the evening slop
And he looks at her and says: hey darling, I can remember when you could stop a clock
Oh but ain't that America...
I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the USA...
Yeah, those would make great campaign songs. Did anybody actually listen to them, or did they just read the titles in a Billboard list?
Mellencamp's songs in particular, while they might sound like good ol' down-home country-rock songs, are mostly about futility and mediocrity and failure. People sing "Small Town" and "Jack and Diane" as though they're about hope and dreams and opportunity, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they really tell tales of provinciality and despair, disguised under a cheerful twanging slogan-ready refrain. Just like people who obliviously play the stalker-creepy "I'll Be Watching You" at their own weddings, under the impression that it's a romantic song.
This reminds me of when the US Postal Service used "Fly Like an Eagle" for its ads. They had to cut out all they lyrics except for "to the sea", because the rest of the words made no goddamn sense in the context they were trying to use it for. They apparently just liked the imagery conjured by a couple of words in the chorus.
I'd be perfectly happy if they picked "Johnny B. Goode" for the McCain campaign theme. It doesn't have any politics in it, either sincere or bitterly satiric, and nobody will be able to thickwittedly confuse the latter for the former.
Via J Greely.
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Brian Tiemann
