Music connects platforms

The votes are in. The decision has been made.

And the winner for best presidential campaign music is…Franklin D. Roosevelt for 1932s “Happy Days are Here Again.”

Give yourself a pat on the back, FDR, your campaign song was optimistic and appropriate for a man with Polio pulling a country out of the Great  Depression.

Campaign music has a strange habit of setting the tone for the candidate’s stint in office. 

The song, though catchy and seemingly patriotic, is in fact about a Vietnam veteran who returns to the United States only to be appalled by how poorly his country treats him.

Excellent work, Reagan.

Almost as excellent as your economic policies.

The 2004 election saw a similar mistake as George W. Bush campaigned with Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son.”

Now, the song opens with the lyrics, “Some folks are born, made to wave the flag/Oh that red white and blue/and when the band plays ‘Hail to the Chief,’ oh they point the cannon at you.”

Coupled with some fantastically catchy tunes, “Fortunate Son” has all the makings of a great, patriotic song.

That is, until the next line, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son.”

Again, we have a presidential candidate using a song about the Vietnam War as a campaign song.

Given the later comparison of the present war to Vietnam, perhaps his poor choice of campaign song should have been a warning.
John McCain used John Mellencamp’s “Our Country” during this election until Mellencamp asked McCain to stop.

The song was also used in a Ford commercial in which the words “This is our country” played over an image of farmers building a fence.

The two are entirely unrelated, but it is amusing nonetheless.

However, he does gain some points with his later choice of “Take a Chance on Me” in what may the only time in history when the use of an ABBA song is appropriate.

McCain’s “maverick” status lends itself well to lyrics like “Take a chance on me/Gonna do my very best and it ain’t no lie/If you put me to the test, if you let me try.”

Barack Obama, in his ultimate hipness, chose Ben Harper’s “Better Way.”

With lyrics like, “Everyone I know is in the fight of their life,” “What good is a man who won’t take a stand.” and “I believe in a better way,” I’m inclined to believe

Obama actually designed his platform after this song.

Both McCain and Obama chose eerily appropriate campaign songs and deserve to be commended for their good choices.

I sincerely hope “Better Way” becomes an anthem for the next four years.

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