On a lighter note -- Kerry's campaign soundtrack

[DeepModem Mom]

This article is about the music of both campaigns, but the excerpts are about our music --


Campaigns strike chords with the music of America
Songs resonate with candidates, rouse party faithful

BY DELIA M. RIOS NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

"This Land Is Your Land" was a hit with delegates to the Democratic National Convention in July.

Woody Guthrie wrote it in 1940, in a pointed response to Irving Berlin’s "God Bless America" — a peace song embraced in 1938 as war threatened Europe. But Guthrie heard only simplistic reassurances when he thought Americans needed hope....

***

Sen. John Kerry had barely bounded ashore at Boston’s Charlestown Navy Yard when he took a microphone in hand to proclaim, "Bruce Springsteen had it right: No retreat, no surrender!" The next night, the Democrat, about to accept his party’s nomination, entered the Fleet Center convention hall to Springsteen’s "No Surrender": We made a promise we swore we’d always remember -- No retreat, no surrender -- Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to defend ...

"I think it pumps him up — it pumps all of us up," said Wade Sanders, who like Kerry skippered a patrol boat in Vietnam and who was with him in Boston. "It gets you ready to go out there and fight."

Springsteen, asked by his fan magazine Backstreets, said Kerry’s use of the song was "a nice call."...

***

Kerry’s set typically includes Springsteen’s "No Surrender" and his 9/11 anthem "The Rising"; U2’s "Beautiful Day" and Petty’s "I Won’t Back Down"; and ends with Chuck Berry’s "Johnny B. Goode," a playful tribute to the candidate (and now his running mate, Sen. John Edwards). "What more could you ask for than Chuck Berry?" Sanders asks....

***

The same ordinary, hardworking characters inhabit both campaigns’ soundtracks; a deep patriotic strain runs as much through Springsteen’s "Land of Hope and Dreams" — which Kerry used in announcing his selection of Edwards — as through a Bush favorite, George Strait’s "Heartland."...

http://epaper.ardemgaz.com/Repository/getFiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=ArDemocrat/2004/09/05&ID=Ar00800


And maybe it's a good time to look at Springsteen's words from "Land of Hope and Dreams" -- remembering that our side knows that this great train of a nation doesn't just carry Americans who live in someone's idea of a "heartland," but all of us, saints and sinners, in all our diversity -- and that, if Bruce is right, "dreams will not be thwarted," "faith will be rewarded":

Grab your ticket and your suitcase
Thunder's rolling down the tracks
You don't know where you're goin'
But you know you won't be back
Darlin' if you're weary
Lay your head upon my chest
We'll take what we can carry
And we'll leave the rest

Big Wheels rolling through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

I will provide for you
And I'll stand by your side
You'll need a good companion for
This part of the ride
Leave behind your sorrows
Let this day be the last
Tomorrow there'll be sunshine
And all this darkness past

Big wheels roll through fields
Where sunlight streams
Meet me in a land of hope and dreams

This train
Carries saints and sinners
This train
Carries losers and winners
This Train
Carries whores and gamblers
This Train
Carries lost souls
This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'
This Train
Carries broken-hearted
This Train
Thieves and sweet souls departed
This Train
Carries fools and kings
This Train
All aboard

This Train
Dreams will not be thwarted
This Train
Faith will be rewarded
This Train
Hear the steel wheels singin'
This Train
Bells of freedom ringin'

Copyright © Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/songs/LandOfHopeAndDreams.html

[rndmprsn]

1. nice post

it's kind of funny...but the kerry/bush musical divide seems to be between rock vs country music...at least at their campaign stops.

it says alot (i like both actually...shhh)

peace

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Me, too, rndmprsn -- Welcome to DU!

[barackmyworld]

3. I love "sir duke"

that was played after Edwards' speech.