I know what you’re thinking: “Why should I care who Young Jeezy endorses more than any other groaning once and former coke dealer with a poor actual-rhyme-to-verse ratio?” But unlike Rick Ross (I presume), Jeezy actually met one of the presumed presidential nominees during a shared Saturday Night Live appearance. “John McCain is cool, but he looks like a fraud to me… I told him the ‘hood was fucked up, and he was like, ‘How you doing?’ Real talk. They know entertainers, so they shake your hand [and say], ‘I’m your friend.’ But my mama is about to have surgery that I gotta pay for out of my pocket because she can’t get insurance. I don’t really feel McCain.” Aw, but I’m sure McCain feels you, Mr. Snowman!
He’s tried John Cougar Mellencamp. He’s tried Chuck Berry. He’s even tried ABBA (sez McCain: “”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 embarassed to say I like ABBA, ‘Dancing Queen.'”) But nobody seems to want John McCain using their music as his campaign theme. What, doesn’t one of those Hillary Clinton fans who swear they’d rather vote Republican than for Obama own a worthwhile copyright?
John McCain has acquiesced to John Mellencamp’s demands that the Republican presidential nominee stop playing the Coug’s “Pink Houses” and “Our Country” at his campaign rallies. “You know, here’s a guy running around saying, ‘I’m a true conservative.'” Mellencamp’s publicist told the AP. More »
Community-minded heartland liberals who also happen to be rock musicians have had to deal with Republican candidates misappropriating their songs since the great Reagan/Springsteen “misunderstanding” of 1984, but John Mellencamp has reached his limit. He’s “quietly” had his “people” approach Republican candidate John McCain to ask him to stop using the mildly patriotic (and awful) “Our Country” and the mildly subversive (and classic) “Pink Houses” at his campaign rallies. It’s easy to understand why McCain would want to use “Our Country”; he was probably just hypnotized like the rest of us by all those mom and apple pie and a two-car garage for everyone Chevy commercials. But Rolling Stone finds it hard to believe that dude even bothered to pull out the lyric sheet to Uh-Huh to see exactly what “Pink Houses” was saying about this great country of ours before he added it to the playlist.
The Guardian looks at which musicians are endorsing which Presidential candidates today, and delivers the shocking news that the lines of support aren’t as cut and dried as R & B singers breaking for Obama and powerful women in music going to Hillary Clinton’s side of the fence. Shocking! Perhaps almost as mind-bending as the fact that the piece’s information on which musicians are stumping for Republican candidates is pretty thin, although the Guardian does share the somewhat dejecting news complete misinformation that former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic is supporting Ron Paul. More digging didn’t reveal much else, though; the MySpace page Musicians for Ron Paul has Serj Tankian in its top 8 (he doesn’t return the favor), and I came across a musicians for Huckabee blog hasn’t been updated since August. At least he has the Nuge on his side. Anyway, a partial list of musicians who have made their Presidential preferences known is after the jump. Feel free to add your own in comments!
It’s not quite up there with his take on Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen,” but John McCain’s stunning cover version of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”–in which he changes the chorus to “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran”–could prove to be the most notable single of McCain’s career. More »
