My final election indulgence.
Tomorrow the blog, like the world, will go on…
Song of the Day #3,051: ‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)’ – R.E.M.
Song of the Day #3,050: ‘I Had a Dream (Live)’ – Loudon Wainwright III
In order to maintain my daily blog schedule, I write these entries well in advance. So this is a tricky one… as I write this, a week before election day in the midst of the newest Clinton email scandal, it’s conceivable that it will be going live when we have a President-elect Trump.
Now I’m pretty confident that Clinton has this in the bag. I’ve felt that way for a year, in fact, before Access Hollywood and three knockout debates and all the rest. But the last thing I want to do is jinx things by posting some sort of congratulatory song before the chickens have hatched.
Song of the Day #3,049: ‘Hey Mr. Tangerine Man (Live)’ – Wesley Stace
We have arrived. After what seems like a decade-long presidential campaign, today’s the day we choose our next president.
I’ve been saying for more than a year that Hillary Clinton has this in the bag, mostly because of the demographic advantages Democrats have in high turnout elections. It doesn’t hurt that her opponent is a narcissistic misogynist.
But who knows? I might wake up tomorrow in Donald Trump’s America. God help us all.
Song of the Day #3,048: ‘Old Man Trump’ – U.S. Elevator (Feat. Mac McCaughan and Tim Bluhm)
The coolest back story of any song in the anti-Trump 30 Days, 30 Songs project belongs to this tune by California band U.S. Elevator.
I’ll let the official intro tell the tale:
In 1950, American raconteur and folk icon Woody Guthrie wrote a song about his landlord. It took over half a century for these lyrics to surface, but earlier this year, Guthrie scholar Will Kaufman unearthed the handwritten lyrics while performing research at the Woody Guthrie Archives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Normally a discovery like this would be notable for the folk set and Guthrie fanatics – but this song, and this year is different. Woody’s landlord was none other than Fred Trump, father of Donald J. Trump, and the subject matter could have been pulled directly from the campaign of 2016.
