Thread: Obama's iPod

Obama's iPod: everything but Garth Brooks

The presidential candidate's playlist covers all the political bases. Apart from those tricky working class whites...
June 25, 2008 4:00 PM

Barack Obama live in the Austin Music Hall


During his slugfest with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama enraged baby-boomers by asserting that the United States needed to put all that psychodrama of the 60s behind it. This could come back to haunt him in November, when he runs against a man who spent years being abused in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp during the 1960's. It's hard for people like that to move beyond all the psychodrama. It just is.


The masterfully selected contents of Obama's iPod, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine, suggests that the Illinois presidential hopeful is now, however, going out of his way to mend fences with the 80 million American born between 1946 and 1964.


Bob Dylan, Sixties icon par excellence, is on his playlist, as are Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones and everyone's favorite poet of the common man, Bruce Springsteen. These boomer deities are joined by such M.O.R. heart throbs as Earth, Wind & Fire and Elton John, as well as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker, sacrosanct stalwarts whose once cutting-edge music now serves as coffee-house wallpaper everywhere. The inclusion of Sheryl Crow, an artist who did not become famous in the 60s, but sounds like she should have, sends a powerful, reassuring message to Boomers.
Mi casa es su casa. Mi iPod es su iPod.


Lest he be accused of deserting his base and pandering to the white middle-class, Obama's iPod does include selections by Jay-Z and Ludacris. Deftly, the candidate concedes that he does have reservations about the lyrics. Baby-boomers love to hear this sort of thing, because that's the way middle-aged, white, wishy-washy liberals talk about hip-hop. "It's culturally incisive and politically vital. It speaks truth to power. It's the last bona fide innovation in pop music. I just wish it wasn't so damned...vulgar..."


The only gap in the semiotic code that is Obama's iPod playlist is a bone or two to toss to the white working class. Pasty-faced proles, generic white trash and full-bore rednecks don't care much for the junior senator from Illinois, as Hillary's poll numbers demonstrated during the primary season. A really machiavellian politician would have gone out of his way to include a couple of tunes by Kenny Chesney or Garth Brooks, just to show he had his heart in the right place, his feet firmly planted in the dusty soil of the American Heartland. But, in the end, Obama may have decided that would have been unforgivably calculating and cynical, like George Bush pretending to enjoy Akon.


Otherwise, Barack Obama's play list isn't much different than John Kerry's, Al Gore's, John Edwards', or Sheryl Crow's. Personally, I think he should have stolen Hillary's.

Obama's iPod: everything but Garth Brooks | Music | guardian.co.uk

Wonder what McCain has on his?

Wonder what McCain has on his?

Complete soundtrack from Apocolypse Now
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Probably a little Willie Nelson Flag kissing music as well.

for obama
Goin' Back To My Roots
Odissey


Zippin' up my boots, goin' back to my roots, yeah,
To the place of my birth, back down to earth.


I've been standing in the rain,
Drenched and soaked with pain,
Tired of short time benefits
And being exposed to the elements.
I'm homeward bound, got my head turned around.


Zippin' up my boots, goin' back to my roots, yeah,
To the place of my birth, back down to earth.
Ain't talkin' 'bout no roots in the land,
Talkin' 'bout no roots in the man.
I feel my spirit gettin' old, it's time to recharge my soul.
I'm zippin' up my boots, goin' back to my roots, yeah,
To the place of my birth, back down to earth.


Zippin' up my boots, goin' back to my roots.
To the place of my birth, back down to earth.

Originally Posted by robitusson

Wonder what McCain has on his?

Obviously Barbara Ann by the Beach Boys.