Lonesome DJ Dave here with a reminder that for each Turf Club Theme Time event I produce a free CD which includes some of the songs played throughout the night. There are usually only a dozen of these so you'll want to stop by the turntables as soon as Pocahontas County finishes their first set.
At first I thought ELECTIONS was going to be a difficult subject, but in the end I had more records than I did time to play them. "Ruckus on Wallstreet" by Jack Klatt & the Cat Swingers is one of my favorite songs by a local band from recent years, and I would have played it if we had not been so fortunate as to have them on the bill last Sunday (you can hear that song, along with the rest of Jack's two amazing discs, on his bandcamp page here). I also thought the Pokie Co. boys did a magnificent job with Randy Newman's "Political Science"!
A lot of the records I played at the show were not on the free disc - two of those I especially love are "Pope County Blues" by the great local singer-songwriter Larry Long (which you can hear here) and a super funky jam by Herb Geller called "Rhyme and Reason Time". That one was an album I found the day before the show!
Here is the track listing for the CD. Everything was played off vinyl 45s and LPs with the exception of some of the campaign excerpts, which I found online or on historical records and recorded to an iPod. The recording of Mitt Romney's remarks to a private fundraiser was mixed with a song by jazz trumpeter Dave Douglas:
1 - The Philosopher King Must Rule (Plato) - read by Sidney Poitier, music by Fred Katz
2 - Elected - Alice Cooper
3 - Excerpt from Ronald Reagan's acceptance speech at the 1980 Republican convention
4 - There is a War - Leonard Cohen
5 - Election Year Rag - Steve Goodman
6 - Excerpt from Richard Nixon's "Last Press Conference" 1962
7 - Van Buren - from the LIFE album of American presidential campaign songs
8 - FDR's Back Again - The New Lost City Ramblers
9 - Mutt Romney Blues - Ry Cooder
10 - Excerpt from Mitt Romney's remarks about "47% of Americans" (music: November by Dave Douglas)
11 - Brother Can you Spare a Dime? - Bing Crosby
12 - Excerpt from a 1936 speech by Huey Long
13 - Long Walk to DC - The Staple Singers
14 - You Can't Fight City Hall - Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band
15 - Excerpt from the 1988 Vice-Presidential debates (Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen)
16 - The Monkey that Became President - Tom T. Hall
17 - Election Day - The Replacements
18 - 1976 campaign ad for Gerald Ford
19 - Mid-American Manufacturing Tycoon - Bobby Russell
20 - Harry Truman - Chicago
21 - Excerpt from the 1980 presidential debate
22 - Alternative Ulster - Stiff Little Fingers
23 - Gimme Some Truth - Generation X
24 - Liar - The Sex Pistols
25 - Excerpt from speech by Ronald Reagan
26 - 20 Years - The Strike
27 - Excerpt from Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address
28 - Shah Mot (The Shah is Dead) - Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson
29 - Ball of Confusion - The Temptations
30 - Excerpt from Richard Nixon's farewell address to the White House staff
31 - You're Getting Better - Ken Nordine
What does it all mean? I can't really say, nor can I promise there's any genuine political leanings in the track selection. I may have used more recordings of Republican presidents but some of that is because Reagan and Nixon had, I think, the best speech writers of the 20th century working for them. The truth is in Steve Goodman's delightful 1976 single-only song "Election Year Rag":
"The winner's always someone else and the loser's always us."
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