Did I make this up, or is it true that in the 70's the radio stations used to play little fake interviews where the interviewer's question would be answered with a snippet of a popular song? You know, the deep male voice would say "How is the weather out there?" and in answer you'd hear "It never rains in southern California" by Albert Hammond?
Either that really happened, or it's a project that Mary Beth Fitz and I cooked up with a cassette deck and record player to while away the hours on Branford Road when we couldn't get enough kids together for a game of Ten Sticks. Let me know.
Regardless, as I was choosing a song that would encapsulate a midterm election week for Friday Music Moment, I got thinking about those old interviews, and which songs answer the question of what it all means.
Is the right answer "Change is Hard" by She & Him? I hate to see all those blue seats turn red, and worry about what it means for health care and climate legislation and financial reforms. Is it "A Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow, shifting pressure from the Democrats to the Republicans to find ways to not just criticize the government but to try to make it work better?
Maybe it's "You're a Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates, going out over the airwaves to Meg Whitman, free-spending Robotron who lost the California gubernatorial campaign, or "Once in a Lifetime" with its "same as it ever was" refrain for her opponent Jerry Brown. He manages to be both the youngest and oldest California governor in modern California history with this third term.
And there's always this Patsy Cline song for Christine O'Donnell. (By the way, Patsy, big ups on incorporating the sweatband for everyday fashion. Who knew Olivia Newton John and Jane Fonda were mere imitators?)
In the end, whether you're red or blue, it's been a long, bruising political season with no clear winners, with a lot of us screaming for mercy at the end. No matter how sweet it sounds when the Avett Brothers sing it, there are boatloads of "Shame" to go around. So I take comfort in what really matters: motherhood, apple pie, and BASEBALL. In honor of the World Series Win and our magnificent hirsute Giants, what's more fitting than the all male a capella choir "Conspiracy of Beards" singing Leonard Cohen's "Sisters of Mercy" on the steps of San Francisco City Hall?
"Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me their song."
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