Our columnist reviews the music choices of the two major presidential campaigns, favoring the Democrats’ picks. (Getty Images)
Election Day is only three weeks away, and as Donald Trump’s third full campaign comes to a close, American voters have a pretty good idea who he is. Imagine having a conversation with a voter anywhere and hearing them say, “I wonder what this Trump fellow is really like.”
One could just listen to the tunes that surround him. It’s not a long playlist.
Vice President Kamala Harris was oddly playing a little bit of catch up when she entered the race as the Democrats presumptive nominee in July. Those of us in the political class knew her well, but apparently some voters needed to learn about or adjust to this late entry to the contest. It’s hard for me to accept something as absurd as that, but I’m working through it.
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While large numbers of voters didn’t know enough about Harris, I have to admit that I didn’t know much about her campaign’s theme song, Beyoncé’s “Freedom.” Yea, I’d heard it, but I never really listened to it. It’s played at the places I go. The restaurants, stores and the gyms where I spend time have had it in rotation since it came out in 2016.
“Hey! I’ma keep runnin’ cause a winner don’t quit on themselves,” is the last line of the chorus that hits the hardest for me. Put those words with the power of Beyoncé’s sound, look and aura, and you get a walk up, and a mic drop song all wrapped up into one. It’s been used both ways for many causes over the years because of it.
At the other party’s events, in some other swing state, the song being played is, gasp, “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood. I’ve kept it to myself for a long time now, but that ends today. It is simply an awful song. Admittedly, it’s simply not my genre, but I don’t know whose it is. I won’t hear it anywhere I go, and if I did, I would immediately leave. It’s a rip off of “God Bless America,” another song that never comes up in anyone’s shuffle.
My favorite line from it is, “’Cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away.” Aah, the generic “they.” That’s who we need to unite against, whoever “they” are. We need to wrap ourselves in the flag and then get out there and bless something. And the music? It sounds like the kind of stuff that was sold late at night on a 1980’s infomercial. It’s just not cool.
Campaign music history
There’s history with campaign music, though most of it is relatively recent. Both Bill Clinton campaigns used Fleetwood Mac’s, “Don’t Stop.” The use of it was enough to reunite the band and reignite their fans. The reuniting thing is kind of a big deal, since the song was about a romantic breakup of two of the band’s members. It’s a weird selection in that way, though I think fans focused on the themes of “thinking about tomorrow” and “yesterday’s gone,” the latter theme was the song’s original name.
But who really cares about a campaign’s music? I imagine Republicans hope no one does. I would also imagine that the music a campaign chooses is likely not a persuasive tool. However, the music is useful for engagement. And engagement is the only fight left.
Whichever side wins the turnout battle is who will win the election. Polls are particularly bad at predicting this, so dwelling on the poll of the day during the next three weeks is wasted dwelling.
Pew Research published a detailed report about voter turnout last year. Its primary conclusion was that “most Americans are not consistent voters.” The data in the report is voluminous, but the thing that jumped off the screen at me was that generationally speaking, millennials are the least consistent voters of them all.
Beyonce’s fans are millennials, and younger. Greenwood’s fans are much, much older. His prime was in the 1980’s, and his fans forty years ago were already relatively old.
Robin Abcarian’s column, “The incredibly long list of musicians who have demanded that Trump stop using their songs,” ran in the L.A. Times last month. She counted at least 41 artists, ranging from ABBA to the Village People, who don’t want him playing their music at his events. Artists have objected to campaigns using their songs before, but never like this.
Contrast that problem with Harris’s Taylor Swift endorsement and an event second gentleman, Doug Emhoff hosted featuring R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and Jason Isbell last week. It’s an undeniable source of excitement, an influencer-play in the age of influencers.
Will it matter? Possibly. But one thing is certain, one party will definitely rock better than the other.
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