The Following Songs Go Out To....

To Mitt Romney, for his courageous leadership on women's rights:

To Paul Ryan, for his dedication to volunteer work:

It Should Be an Issue

Even if Mitt Romney, for some reason,¹ has chosen to bury it. This one goes out to the President:

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1. Is there a hidden strategy? Fear that if pressed for specifics he would have nothing more to offer than, "No more extensions and 'food stamps' are too generous"?

When Words Get Broken

If I'm doing songs, one for Joe Biden.

The Romney-Ryan Campaign Song

Two men who see lots of... Opportunities.

Not Just Politically Tone Deaf....

Um....



Although I'm sure everybody in "Newt Hampshire" is impressed, that hurt my ears.

But hey - If they cover Newt's solo, as modified by me, I'll still listen to their next video.

Gingrich vs. Romney, the Campaign Song Edition

If the race for the Republican presidential nomination truly is down to "Mitt v. Newt", it seems that I should update my campaign song suggestions. Back in 2007 I suggested that Mitt Romney should choose "Everything To Everyone", by Everclear, and earlier this year I suggested "Stuck With You", by Huey Lewis and the News. (I will admit that Romney's long-awaited introduction of himself reminds me of the first line of "Sympathy for the Devil", but not so much the rest of the song.) For Newt, I suggested "Boy For Sale", by Lionel Bart. Those suggestions still seem fitting, but if it truly is a two person race perhaps I should update my suggestions to reflect that reality.

• Newt Gingrich: "Two Princes", by the aptly named Spin Doctors. It's not just that Newt will be emphasizing his humble roots, or using endorsements of Romney to suggest that he's some type of outsider. It's also that I can picture him campaigning, not so much by shaking hands and kissing babies, but by showing up at your door, announcing himself as the presumptive nominee, and asking if you've bought him flowers.

• Mitt Romney: "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon.

  I am everything you want, I am everything you need,
  I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be,
  I say all the right things at exactly the right time,
  But I mean nothing to you and I don't know why....

Whatever role Romney took back in his days as a corporate raider, if the past five years are any indication it seems reasonable to infer that he was not the guy you could count on to close a deal.

Campaign Songs for the Republican Nominees

Four years ago, I proposed a variety of campaign songs for the Republican and Democratic nominees. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney haven't outgrown my suggestions of that time:

• Mitt Romney– Everything To Everyone, by Everclear. A song about a habitual appeaser for a man who will say anything to get elected, even if he said something completely different fifteen seconds earlier. The song is about how appeasement leads to failure, and I suspect that it will prove to be on the mark.

• Ron Paul – Fool On The Hill, by The Beatles. There may be more to him than meets the eye, but few seems to notice.

The current crop of Republicans is not an inspiring bunch, but it's not too late - perhaps a campaign song is just the thing to transform Newt Gingrich from, um, okay that's not going to work. Let's see... To transform John Huntsman¹ into a serious contender. Meanwhile, Romney and Paul could use updated music, right? So here goes.....

• Mitt Romney: Stuck With You, by Huey Lewis and the News. "We thought about someone else, but neither one took the bait; We thought about breaking up, but now we know it's much too late", doesn't that about say it all?

• Michelle Bachmann: Girlfriend, by Avril Lavigne. It's not entirely fair to her, but she had to have a pretty good idea of her job description when she entered the race: "Convince people to support you over Sarah Palin, then fade into the background." Really - has the right wing media paid her any real attention since Palin made it official that she would not be running?

• Ron Paul: You Won't See Me, by the Beatles. It keeps with the general Beatles theme and seems rather fitting, given how the media largely treats him as the invisible man.

• Jon Huntsman: Can't You See, by the Marshall Tucker Band. I suppose there are contexts in which being told, "Not if you're the last man on Earth" could mean, "Once she sees how flawed her other suitors are, and that I'm truly, objectively the smartest, most honest, most capable person in the bunch, she'll start to like me," but most of the time it actually means "Not if you're the last man on Earth".

• Herman Cain: Out Ta Get Me, by Guns 'N Roses. Because nothing says "I'm innocent" like a series of contradictory statements and conspiracy theories. He's going to go down fighting and won't give up until... every last copy of his book is sold!

• Newt Gingrich: Boy For Sale, by Lionel Bart. No, it's not an allusion to his appreciation for orphanages. I can't think of any genuine purpose for his campaign other than to remind us that he's the Ed McMahon of conservatism - if I were cynical I might say that if you give him "seven guineas... or thereabouts", before you know it he'll have half of the commentators on Fox complimenting his brilliance as an "idea man" for spewing your drivel on the air.

• Rick Perry: Rehab, by Amy Winehouse. A song that seems suitable due to his periodic incoherence, his odd effusiveness and... I forget.

• Rick Santorum: The Best Song In The World!!!!. You vote for this guy, you deserve to get rickroll'd. And the substance-free lyrics seem somehow fitting for a substance-free candidate in a substance-free race.

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1. You say John Huntsman can't be transformed into a serious candidate? Alright then, would you have preferred I say Bachmann? Cain? Santorum? Sure, some people take them seriously, and in the modern Republican Party you can simultaneously be a cartoon character and a frontrunner, but please.... Sure, not so long ago Bachmann was touted as a "top candidate", but as was Perry, but they're currently polling well below Gingrich, in what you might call "Ron Paul territory." "Stick a fork in 'em."

Divorce... So Different Than it Used to Be

The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial about divorce that brought to mind, of all things, an Air Supply song.

Growing up, my brother and I were often left to our own devices, members of the giant flock of migrant latchkey kids in the 1970s and '80s. Our suburb was littered with sad-eyed, bruised nomads, who wandered back and forth between used-record shops to the sheds behind the train station where they got high and then trudged off, back and forth from their mothers' houses during the week to their fathers' apartments every other weekend....

"Whatever happens, we're never going to get divorced." Over the course of 16 years, I said that often to my husband, especially after our children were born.

Or, as Air Supply put it,

They lived in a world that was cold and uncaring,
They swore they would change it with loving and sharing.
They'll never live like their parents have done,
Their innocence shone like the sun....

WSJ:

After nine years, my husband and I had become wretched, passive-aggressive roommates. I had given up trying to do anything in the kitchen and had not washed a dish in a year. My husband had not been able to "find time" to read the book I had written. We rarely spoke, except about logistics. We hadn't slept in the same room for at least two years, a side effect of the nighttime musical bed routine that parents of so many young children play in semiconsciousness for years on end....

But then, one evening, I found myself where I vowed I'd never be: miserable, in tears, telling my husband that we were like siblings who couldn't stand each other rather than a couple, and listening as my husband said he felt as though we had never really been a couple and regretted that we hadn't split up a decade earlier.

Air Supply:

Who are these strangers who used to be lovers,
Now they've got nothing to say to each other.
Too far apart to discuss their mistakes,
They file for divorce and it breaks their American hearts....

WSJ:

That was four years ago. Even now, I still wonder every day if there was something that I—we—could have done differently. Like many of my cohort, the circumstances of my upbringing led me to believe that I had made exactly the right choices by doing everything differently from my parents.

Air Supply:

Now that it's over they'll each go on living,
Never forgetting but somehow forgiving.

WSJ:

We may not make it in marriage, but we still want to make it as parents. In the '70s, only nine states permitted joint custody. Today, every state has adopted it.... Joint custody also reduces family strife.... Many of us have ended up inflicting pain on our children, which we did everything to avoid.

But we have not had our parents' divorces either. We can only hope that in this, we have done it differently in the right way.

Air Supply:

They'll care for their children protect them with pride,
And that's how their dream will survive in American hearts....

Here's the thing: The WSJ is claiming that it's describing something new about divorce, relevant to Gen X (born 1965 - 1980). The Air Supply song was recorded in 1980, is about a couple who married in 1969 and is thus about their parents. It may feel like there's something new to the story, but the actual differences seem to be in the details. The song (still a bit maudlin) is the same.

Let me give you a tip if you find yourself sleeping in a different bed than your spouse for two years and struggling to think of anything you could do differently to salvage your relationship. If marriage counseling seems like too big a step, you could try sharing a bed. And don't blame your lack of intimacy on the kids - yes, they get in the way, but where there's a will....

Don't Blame Joe the Plumber

Blame Joe the Electrician!

None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Seriously, though, if the plumber watches the electrician use speaker wire for a 220 volt outlet, and doesn't tell the foreman....

A brief AIGFP playlist:

• Blame it on the Rain - Milli Vanilli. Because it was their producers' fault, right?

• A Little Respect - Erasure.

• She Works Hard For The Money - Donna Summer.

• Fire Water Burn - The Boodhound Gang.

• If I Had a Million Dollars - The Barenaked Ladies. No, wait, that's not supposed to be here.

• Take This Job and Shove It - the Johnny Paycheck version, of course.

Congratulations, Mr. President

And relax. It's not like the expectations are high.

I've never liked this song, but it seems appropriate for the occasion. I'm thinking... A Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi duet outside the window of the Lincoln Bedroom?

Getting Back To The Real Issues

I don't mean to cast any doubt on the ferocity of Sarah Palin's high school basketball play, but let's be serious for a minute. Odds are, when she was about fourteen years old and Little Queen was getting wall-to-wall airplay, her nickname was inspired by a Heart song.

If the real thing dont do the trick,
No, you better make up something quick,
You gonna burn burn burn burn it to the wick,
Oh, barra barracuda.

Do you have a good ear for music?

However tinny your ear, it could be worse - also available in a higher register. If you recognize the song, help him out.

Big Yellow Taxi as a Conservative Anthem

Now that I know how rock lyrics are supposed to be interpreted, I realize that I've been wrong all these years about Big Yellow Taxi. Let me explain. The Pretenders Song, My City Was Gone, is apparently a conservative song - the 13th most conservative rock song of all time:

Virtually every conservative knows the bass line, which supplies the theme music for Limbaugh’s radio show. But the lyrics also display a Jane Jacobs sensibility against central planning and a conservative’s dissatisfaction with rapid change: "I went back to Ohio / But my pretty countryside / Had been paved down the middle / By a government that had no pride."

Isn't that more or less the same as "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"? Once I realized how I was supposed to interpret lyrics, I knew that I was supposed to take "They took all the trees, and put em in a tree museum / And they charged the people a dollar and a half to see them" literally - Joni is endorsing capitalism, and the preservation of forests through private enterprise rather than government regulation. Go Joni!

He also makes Sweet Home Alabama the #4 most conservative song,

A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe, taking a shot at Neil Young’s Canadian arrogance along the way: "A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow."

News flash? And Godzilla?

A 1977 classic about a big green monster — and more: "History shows again and again / How nature points up the folly of men."

Is there even a conservative way to interpret that passage, even if you're completely ignorant of its anti-nuclear origin?

Read the list - it's mostly wonderful self-parody.

With The Exception of Yoko Ono, That Is

Perhaps now that the latest Apple v Apple trademark suit has been resolved in favor of the computer maker, the Beatles and their heirs can get back to making money the way they used to - by creating music.

Subsequent Remedial Measures

I realize they're playing it up for the media, but would this type of claim make you want to hire this firm?

Apple Computer’s release Wednesday of a software update to limit the volume level of its iPod music player confirms the product is flawed, U.S. attorneys involved in a class-action suit against the company said.

Also, what's so special about an iPod that common sense shouldn't apply? Hearing loss from excessive volume was an issue with the "Walkman" back in the 1980's.

This is a solution?

Many years ago, griping from the music industry resulted in a fee, attached to any blank cassette tape, which is supposed to compensate the music industry for any illegal copies of their music. It doesn't matter if you want to record a business meeting, birds in your back yard, or even to tape yourself singing in the shower - you pay the fee. From time to time I have heard people use this as a rationalization for the bootleg copies they have made - they ask, "Why should it be illegal to do this, when I already paid the fee when I bought the tape?"

Now, in the New York Times, a Harvard law professor tells the music industry to consider getting with the times and, rather than suing people who download music and trying to avoid the new market for downloading, creating some form of blanket license for its recordings.

To its credit, the industry has started to participate in paid music download services like iTunes, but a better solution would be to institute a monthly licensing fee paid by Internet users.

So, beyond the blank tape where you are ostensibly paying a small fee to make up for somebody else's piracy, this professor suggests that it would be a fair compromise to declare that if you want Internet access you should pay a full license fee for all music.

Apparently this professor is not familiar with the copyright and licensing issues involved in music - where there can be many copyright owners for even a single song, based upon authorship, the participation of multiple artists, sampling, and other such considerations - which would cloud the issue of compensation. Or perhaps he only cares that the music conglomerates "get their money", and is less concerned about the artists. But no matter what he intends, if his licensing scheme were implemented and an Internet user were asked, "How much music will you download now that you are required to pay a full licensing fee just to access the Internet?", a fair answer would be, "All of it."