Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Campaign Songs


Campaign songs are often pretty wussy. "Call Me Al", anyone? And the lyrics of songs don't always jibe with feel-good politics. A while back, the Washington Post had a good article on campaign songs where the politicians just missed the point when picking them out. Often they were using patriotic sounding songs that really has lyrics that said the opposite of a candidate's message. What we really need are campaign songs that called out what the candidates actually stand for. In honor of Super Tuesday I present some candidates (and former candidates) and the songs they really should be playing:

Hillary Clinton

In a famous incident, Clinton was using Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” as a campaign song but some now probably dead flunky accidentally cued up “Captain Jack”, a song about drug abuse and masturbation instead. The Billy Joel song she should really be using is the left-handed compliment of a ballad, “Always A Woman”:
She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she’s always a woman to me

She is frequently kind
And she’s suddenly cruel
She can do as she pleases
She’s nobody’s fool
But she cant be convicted
She’s earned her degree
And the most she will do
Is throw shadows at you
But she’s always a woman to me

Barack Obama

The junior senator from Illinois is definitely the flavor of the month with all the momentum. It's good to be the "New Kid In Town" until your novelty wears off.
Theres talk on the street, it sounds so familiar.
Great expectations, everybody's watching you.
People you meet they all seem to know you,
Even your old friends treat you like you're something new.

Johnny-come-lately, the new kid in town,
Everybody loves you, so don't let them down.

Theres talk on the street, its there to remind you
That it doesn't really matter which side you're on.
You're walking away and they're talking behind you.
They will never forget you till somebody new comes along.

Where you been lately? theres a new kid in town.
Everybody loves him, don't they? now hes holding her
And you're still around, oh my my.
Theres a new kid in town,
Just another new kid in town.

Mitt Romney

On the Republican side, we have the former governor of arguably the most liberal state in the union running as the last great conservative hope. How did he change his spots so well? A certain cross-dressing 80s icon says it so much better than I could. We will see today if Lady Karma gets revenge on this chameleon.
Desert loving in your eyes all the way
If I listen to your lies would you say
I’m a man without conviction
I’m a man who doesn’t know
How to sell a contradiction
You come and go
You come and go

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon
You come and go
You come and go


Rudy Giuliani

Another New Yorker, but unlike Hillary, his campaign crashed and burned. Part of the problem was that the more he pressed the flesh, the lower his approval ratings went. The former Time Man Of The Year became the man that polled behind Undecided. And it was all because, in the words of another Billy Joel song, he had to be a “Big Shot.”
Yes, yes, you had to be a big shot, didn't cha
You had to prove it to the crowd
You had to be a big shot, didn't cha
All your friends were so knocked out
You had to have the last word, last night
You're so much fun to be around
You had to have the front page, bold type
You had to be a big shot last night, Oh oh

Oh Oh whoa whoa oh, Oh Oh whoa who-oo-oo-oo-ah,
Oh Oh Oh whoa whoa oh, Oh Oh whoa.

Well, it's no big sin to stick your two cents in
If you know when to leave it alone
But you went over the line
You couldn't see it was time to go home
No, no, no, no, no, no

Dennis Kucinich

UFO-spotter Kucinich was another candidate that never quite gained any traction. His biggest asset was his preternaturally hot wife. He would have gotten more votes if he had spent time pushing the two-fer deal that the Clintons were always promising/threatening. Bruce Springsteen songs always get mis-appropriated by candidates but “Red-Headed Woman” could have energized the crowds.

Tight skirt, strawberry hair
Tell me what you've got, baby, waiting under there.
Big green eyes that look like, son,
They can see every cheap thing that you ever done.

Well, I don't know how many girls you dated, man
You ain't lived 'til you've had your tires rotated
By a red-headed woman, a red-headed woman.
It takes a red-headed woman to get a dirty job done.

There you have it. Truth in campaign jingles. But truth and politics rarely go well together. And the music always gets lost in translation.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: I just couldn’t think of a good song for John McCain, so feel free to pick one for me.

4 comments:

The Mistress of the Dark said...

Just a random observation...I really like Hillary's suit in that picture.

Elizabeth said...

Oooh, me too. That suit is really pretty. Man and Dennis Kucinich
wife is georgous!

2fs said...

Trawling the archives...but you missed by a few weeks McCain's campaign song: it is, of course, "Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran"...

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