Unrequited Love

I like less and less to get political, but occasionally there's an angle that I like enough to get into it. Every element of life has become tragically politicized, all the way down to the food we eat. Who'd have guessed that chicken would become a battleground for civil rights? Another curious front for the tug-of-war between left and right occurs in the realm of music, and it is rather one-sided. Still, it's a compelling subject to me.

When candidates for elective office campaign, they'll have these big, noisy spectacular events to win the affections of voters. You might think that between the candidate's speeches and the voters there to hear them there'd be enough noise, but they like to have music. Regrettably, it's not live music. Instead, they play recorded music meant to gin up overwrought emotions properly. To their credit, they pick a lot of good music.

What is rather unfortunate for Republicans is that, for whatever reason, there seem to be relatively few dyed-in-the-wool conservatives among the great popular musicians. I don't pretend to have an encyclopedic familiarity, but it strikes me that one could come up dry after tapping the respective discographies of Ted Nugent and Hank Williams, Jr. Certainly no one wants to hear the pair of them exclusively.

The upshot of it is that every election cycle (or, rather, throughout this never-ending cycle that has been ongoing for several years uninterrupted), Republicans play hits by bands who subsequently repudiate said candidate and demand that their music no longer be played at his or her events. That stings badly enough if you've got no strong feelings about the music, but if you really love it, it's got to hurt when they condemn you and tell you to stop listening.