On Politics and the Pop Song

The Washington Post article on Campaign song choices, linked here on the sometimes ironic or inappropriate campaign songs chosen by candidates raises absolutely no eyebrows whatsoever. To think that we have to mean absolutely all of what we say, let alone someone running for president, is ridiculous.

Hopefully the Post will hold campaign promises to the level of scrutiny of their pop-identification. And that's all this is really. It's a song on yr Myspace page, the most recent track you downloaded, a first song on a mixtape.

That Hilary Clinton chose the Tom Petty banger American Girl somehow gets effaced by the fact that in verse 3 line 2 their is a lyrical incongruity. Has the post article author never received a mixtape from anyone.

And maybe that's all this is about, one's lack of mixtape grammar. We don't have to be all of what we identify with as long as we own all of what we say. The beauty of the mixtape lies in the secret language of using another's words to say yr own. That you can be vague and totally obvious at the same time is perhaps the real point, but I'm not sure if this necessarily translates to political campaigns as much as it does with pop-identification. Barack Obama choosing Aretha Franklin's think for one totally great line seems very close to online quizzes titled "Which Sex and the City Character Are You?"

And you are totally Miranda, because of three very specific things you have decided in the moment that based on certain episodes are also characteristic of someone on a television show.

This article takes no account for temporality. And it is all about the moment. That first time through a mixtape, only some things stick in your mind. And that's what a song should do. If this article is more playful than critical than fine. I love the fact that Carnival Cruiselines chose Iggy's Lust For Life how ever it might interfere with the values of their family style fun, it's still a pop song.