As has been breathlessly reported over the last couple of days, we now know the favorite songs of McCain and Obama. The results are disturbing.
John McCain has two ABBA songs in his top five and Obama has no ABBA songs. Obama includes a song by the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. Winner: Obama
Obama likes Spiderman and Batman. McCain lists only Batman. Marvel Comics always beats DC Comics. Winner: Obama.
ABBA? Sheesh.
Now the journalist part of me suspects the two camps played a role in picking these songs. ABBA's Dancing Queen opens a whole new demographic for McCain to pursue, and I'm not going any further with that one. Springsteen is known for thoughtful, working class stuff, so picking a song from The Boss makes good sense for Obama(though he picked "I'm on Fire" instead of something really kickass, like "Thunder Road." Go figure.). And anyone who picks "Gimmer Shelter" by the Stones can't be all bad. Helluva tune.
What people know is in part issue stances, in part character, and in part when it comes to presidential candidates a sense of the person. I'm not sure ABBA was the way to go for McCain.
Later today, if possible, I want to blog about a quiet movement by some folks to get pollsters to include Hillary Clinton in pre-election polls, at least until the conventions are over. It's fascinating stuff, these emails to pro pollsters asking them to include her name, suggesting that maybe it's not so over after all. They note Obama's poll numbers against McCain seeming to slip. Again, fascinating. Hopefully will have more later.
4 comments:
As a fan of the old Springsteen stuff, I had the same reaction to "I'm on Fire."
I think Springsteen's creativity died about a quarter of the way through Born in the USA.
In fact, on the rare occasions when I discuss Springsteen I cite a line from "I'm on Fire" as the first sure evidence that he had lost it.
"Sometimes its like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul."
This from the man who said, "Blame it on the lies that killed us, blame it on the truth that ran us down. You can blame it all on me, Terry, it don't matter to me now."
Bruce Springsteen, RIP.
Wow, you're tougher on The Boss than I am. I agree he hit a period there when his stuff kinda floundered, but I really like The Rising and those session recordings he did recently.
Too bad I haven't been able to catch him in concert in over 20 years.
How many times do you think McCain's seen Mamma Mia by now?
Not fair. I haven't seen Momma Mia!. But yeah, don't a few ABBA tunes show up in that?
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