With the debate heating up over the American Presidential election I thought it might be germaine to take a look at the musical taste and culture of our would be candidates, John McCain and Barrack Obama.
Jackson Browne has sued John McCain for using his song, Running on Empty in a Presidential campaign ad without the musician’s permission. Browne’s lawsuit asks that the McCain campaign stop using his song and he has requested $75,000 in damages from both the Republican National Committee and the Ohio Republican Party. McCain’s people are saying that they had nothing to do with the creation of the ad, and claims that the Ohio Republican Party is solely responsible. It is ironic and strange that a song entitled Running On Empty would be used in a promotional Presidential ad campaign. Wouldn’t Queen’s We Are the Champions be a better choice?
Other musical and acting artists who have had to send cease and desist notices to John McCain’s campaign include ABBA, Chuck Berry, John Hall, John Mellencamp, Mike Myers of Wayne’s World fame and Frankie Valli. It is unclear whether these musical artists disagree politically with John McCain, or whether they are more perturbed by the lack of asking for permission and therefore infringing on their copyright. As far as we know, no musical artists have sued the Obama campaign.
In other Presidential music news, John McCain revealed in Blender magazine revealed that the top ten songs on his iPod are those by The Beach Boys, Louis Armstrong, Roy Orbison, Neil Diamond, The Platters and…ABBA? In fact, McCain likes ABBA so much that he has Dancing Queen as his favorite song and Take A Chance On Me as his third favorite song.
Barrack Obama’s musical taste is not surprisingly a little more hip and he includes The Fugees, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones as some of his favorite musical artists who are on his iPod.
It should be noted that both Barrack Obama and John McCain have something in common musically—they both like Frank Sinatra and have his music on their MP3 players.
Meanwhile, President George Bush has revealed that his iPod favorites include My Sharona by the Knack, Centerfield by John Fogerty and Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. (We assume he’s thinking of First Lady Laura Bush whilst exercising to this one.)
It is a sign of the 21st century that such questions are even asked of a Presidential campaign. I took the liberty of emailing both Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama and inquired after their favorite work of visual art. Alas, I received no answer but was immediately placed on their frenetic and prolific email lists.
