The oPod Revolution-Obama's iPod playlist is exciting, modern, and a little vague,like Obama himself

[Pirate Smile]

The oPod Revolution
by Alex Pappademas
Barack Obama's iPod playlist is exciting, modern, and a little vague, like Obama himself.

-snip-
In an interview to be published this Friday in Rolling Stone, Barack Obama doesn't come right out and declare himself to be a Stones person. But when quizzed about the contents of his iPod by cub reporter Jann Wenner, he references the Stones twice, cites the awesomely apocalyptic "Gimme Shelter" specifically, and doesn't give the Fab Four so much as a name-check. Also on the oPod: " lot of Coltrane, a lot of Miles Davis, a lot of Charlie Parker"; "everything from Howlin' Wolf to Yo-Yo Ma to Sheryl Crow to Jay-Z"; and music from Barack's '70s youth, including Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Elton John. When prompted by Wenner, Obama even cops to an appreciation for the Grateful Dead ("Not only do I enjoy the music, but I just like them as people.") He says nice things about Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom have said nice things about him in public.

By the (incredibly low) standards of presidential-candidate hipness, Barack Obama is almost unbelievably hip, and so's that playlist-a little safe, maybe, a little old-dude, a little too Rolling Stone, but still. John McCain doesn't even use a computer, so he's probably not surfing iTunes with regularity. And remember The New York Times story from 2005, about the songs on George W. Bush's iPod? Some classic rock, some red-state country (Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney), "Brown-Eyed Girl," and a few ringers by Joni Mitchell and the Knack, courtesy of Bush's frequent mountain-biking partner, media strategist Mark McKinnon, and Blake Gottesman, whose duties as Bush's "body man" included maintaining the First iPod.

-snip-
One of the only individual tracks Obama mentions in his conversation with Wenner is Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," which he says is one of "probably 30" Dylan selections in his personal rotation. He describes it as "one of my favorites during the political season. ... It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric."
That's a bold choice. "Maggie's Farm," from 1965's Bringing It All Back Home, is speed-era Dylan, thin-wild-mercury-sound Dylan, head-full-of-ideas-driving-him-insane Dylan, and like most of Dylan's output during that era, it's harsh and funny and punk-before-the-fact. It's written from the perspective of a menial laborer, but it plays like a snarling rebuke of any club that would have Bob as a member, particularly the pious, doctrinaire early-'60s folk scene that wanted Dylan to keep the protest songs coming long after he'd lost interest in writing them. It was the first song Dylan played during his infamous electric set at the Newport Folk Festival; Todd Haynes depicts the moment in I'm Not There by having Cate Blanchett and her band spray the audience with machine-gun fire.

You have to wonder why Obama digs this one. Whose expectations is he thinking about when he hears Dylan sing "Well, I try my best/To be just like I am/But everybody wants you/To be just like them"? Can we infer that when Hilary was downing those Crown Royal shots in Indiana, the lines about Maggie's Ma--"She talks to all the servants/About man and God and law/Everybody says she's the brains behind Pa"--kept running through his head?
Well, no, we probably can't. But "Maggie's Farm" is still kind of a great choice on Obama's part, because it feels so uncalculated. "Blowin' in the Wind" would have implied "change"; "Masters of War" would have implied "Screw John McCain." But "Maggie's Farm" is about individualism, and about the way folk heroes are built up and torn down, and somewhere between the Reverend Wright scandal and the Indiana primary--when the rhetoric was at its looniest and the process was at its ugliest--Obama probably heard his own frustration in its fed-up whine. And by the standards of Presidential-candidate hipness, that's pretty hip.

Alex Pappademas is a GQ staff writer.

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6ee9bb51-bc5b-4ef9-a5ba-aef930e1271a

[SteppingRazor]

1. My favorite part of this is at the beginning, when he identifies Jann Wenner as a "cub reporter."

:rofl:

[IndyOp]

3. Well, he was once a cub reporter -

Back when Mick was still singing about hoping he would die before he got old...


:hi:

[SteppingRazor]

5. Not to put too fine a point on it, but...

1) Roger Daltry sang about that, and;


2) Jann Wenner's a reporter in the same way that Mort Zuckerman or Rupert Murdoch are reporters. :P

[Oregone]

2. Any true Dylan fan is alright in my book.

[skooooo]

9. ..

:thumbsup:

[skooooo]

10. Maggies Farm

..was used by the British unions in the 1970s as a call against Margaret Thatcher's policies.


Bob Dylan - Maggies Farm

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Well, I wake up in the morning,
Fold my hands and pray for rain.
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin' me insane.
It's a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.
Well, he hands you a nickel,
hands you a dime,
asks you with a grin
If you're havin' a good time,
Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's brother no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.
Well, he puts his cigar
in your face just for kicks.
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks.
The National Guard stands around his door.
Ah, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's pa no more.

I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
No, I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law.
Everybody says
She's the brains behind pa.
She's seventy-two, but she says she's twenty-four.
I ain't gonna work for Maggie's ma no more.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am,
But everybody wants you
To be just like them.
They sing while you slave and I just get bored.
I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more.

(Instrumental)

[Rosie1223]

4. In other news: McCain's Victrola playlist is....

You fill in the blanks.

[taterguy]

6. Bush's Ipod allegedly had the Alejandro Escovedo song "Castanets" on it

When Escovedo found out he removed it from his live set list.

[Javaman]

7. It just occurred to me...

I'm roughly the same age as Mr. Obama. He came of age during the Punk era. Interesting. ;) Hey ho, let's go!

[skooooo]

11. Remember when Elvis Costello was new?

Good times!

[Javaman]

12. I wonder if he ever slam danced. LOL

I can see it now, Obama stage diving! LOL

[Pirate Smile]

8. kick