I am teaching a course on the history of social criticism music, from ancient Greece to the present, and, because of the timeliness of the inauguration of Obama, decided I would do a few classes on campaign songs, songs appropriated to campaigns (sometimes with surreal effects, e.g. Ronald Reagan using Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” and saying: “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside our hearts. It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen”; this makes George H.W. Bush’s use of Woody Guthrie’s socialist anthem “This Land Is Your Land” astute by comparison) and songs the offer positive and negative criticisms of the presidents. Of course, I am doing pop, folk, rock, modern, and blues, but this list and your narrative are a real intellectual gift. Many thanks.

Of the lighter sort of ‘blues’, I have always liked, A.C. Reed (former back up saxophonist for the late Albert Collins) “The President Plays” (about Bill Clinton).

My url there links to some of my writing on music.

TGP

just to let you know of a new blues tune based on Presidents, address below, it’s from Australia of all places

thanks guys

adam morris

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL8MQrSy1g