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Tuesday, 14 February 2012 07:00

Written by Rich Kienzle

Mackenzie Carpenter  authored an excellent and quite comprehensive story on Presidential Campaign music in Sunday's PG.   In it, she mentioned a number of the more interesting campaign songs.  In this entry, we're going to give you some of the actual song she mentioned and much more. It would be impossible to mention them all, but we'll look at others not so well known, covering as many candidates as we can find with some context and a bit of music criticism for good measure.

1952 CAMPAIGN

Dwight D. Eisenhower: "Ike For President"

Obviously, the tune reflects the pop vocal groups of the period, the song itself not terribly ideological, nor particularly clever.  Honestly, it reminds me of a Family Guy cutaway.  One almost expects to see Stewie Griffin showing up with some pithy comment.

Adlai Stevenson: "O Stevenson" /"Old McDonald" parody

This seems like a put-on, but it's not. It hijacks the melody of "O Tannenbaum" and takes a dig at Ike with the "Soldier Man" line, trying to intimate Adlai was somehow superior because he was a civilian. Right... what a perfect way to win an election against a war hero!

But seriously, folks, were this performance on The Gong Show, Jamie Farr or Jaye P. Morgan would have knocked that gong into the Pacific--and fast.

Adlai's crew really loved song parodies, especially if the songs were Pubic Domain and didn't require royalty payments. This ditty, targeting the rural audience, is trite at best, patronizing at worst.  No wonder he lost.  Twice.

1960 CAMPAIGN:

John F. Kennedy: "Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy" / "High Hopes" (Frank Sinatra)

A "Sing Along with Mitch" style number with a male-female chorus. Again, the lyrics respond to issues surrounding JFK's campaign, including voter worry over his Catholicism, a huge issue at that the time.  It's certainly innocent and even nostalgic compared to today's attack ads.  The rub: IMHO, it runs about 30 seconds too long.

This is the Sinatra "High Hopes" parody Mackenzie alluded to, a takeoff on his 1959 hit recording with a decidedly hotter orchestral arrangement than the earlier version.

Richard Nixon: "Go Vote Nixon-Lodge"

Safe to say Clancy Hayes and this particular Dixieland Band were pretty pedestrian. The song isn't even good kitsch. But Hayes as a musician was better than what you're hearing here. The pianist had been a member of the San Francisco-based Lu Watters' Yerba Buena Jazz Band, one of the prime movers of America's Dixieland Revival.  The snarky visuals added by the YouTube poster cover Nixon's whole presidency, beyond 1960 and up through Watergate.

BONUS: NIXON CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN 1962

1964 CAMPAIGN:

Barry Goldwater: "Barry's Movin' In"

The name and message are pretty obvious and the title is not what's bannered on the video. With America's Folk Music Revival breathing its last,  and the British Invasion not yet on the radar of Republican strategists, the idea was clearly to give collegiate youth some conservative fare with a Kingston Trio-Limelighters-Chad Mitchell Trio feel to deliver the Goldwater message, not in the Seeger-Dylan-Baez style.  And take note of the bluegrass banjo, a sound not widely heard in folk music groups at the time.

More information on the act with an interview with one of the original Goldwaters.

Lyndon Johnson: "Hello, Lyndon"

Mackenzie noted "Hello Lyndon" in her article. It's based on the theme of Hello Dolly, the hit Broadway musical starring Carol Channing. The song had been a massive pop hit for Louis Armstrong in early '64. "Hello Lyndon" appeared on a single, considered rare today. Musically, it's a first-rate performance. The vocalist is actor-pop vocalist Ed Ames, once of the Ames Brothers, who'd just began his dramtic role as the Indian Mingo on NBC's then-new Daniel Boone series. Ames later starred in the the infamous Johnny Carson Tonight Show hatchet-throw. Accompanying him is the "Hello Dolly Male Chorus."

1968 CAMPAIGN:

George Wallace: "Stand Up For America"

Segregationist Democratic Alabama Governor George C. Wallace made a national name for himself battling the Kennedy Administration's attempts to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963 and in his attempts to battle the aggressive Civil Rights legislation of the mid 60's In 1968 he ran for President as the candidate of the American Independent Party. His appeal with blue collar voters in North and South helped spawn the GOP's famous and ultimately successful "Southern Strategy" that made most of that region the Red States they are today.

Wallace routinely included country bands at his rallies, even in the North. Eventually a number of Nashville stars, many of them longtime Democrats, signed on to support him. One early acolyte was singer Lamar Morris, an Alabama native who performed in the band of Wallace supporter Hank Williams Jr. and wrote Hank Jr.'s first # 1 hit, "Eleven Roses." Note the digs about Pres. Johnson's "Great Society" and about "the Texan" going back to his ranch." 

Richard Nixon:

Uh...hey, we'd better address those blasted hippies stirring up all the trouble right now. That was the focus of this ad, not so much a campaign song but one using music and film cleverly, not surprising given the Nixon campaign's ties to America's top ad agencies.

Note how the young folk in the film clips begin as those evil, commie-inspired, LSD-smoking bums from San Francisco and slowly transition to youth more appropriate to the white-bread 60's TV sitcom My Three Sons. Likewise listen to the music changing from an ad man's half-baked idea of "psychedelic" rock to something more mainstream and dull.  That will show those damn beatniks who's boss!

Hubert Humphrey:  "Let Hubert Humphrey Lead the Way"

Well, it seems this number showed up around Vice President's campaign, but it wasn't written specifically for him.  The lyrics were changed to fit the campaign. The zippy little tune is actually "Step To The Rear (Let A Winner Lead the Way)," a 1967 Carolyn Leigh-Elmer Bernstein composition from another hit Broadway musical of the day: How Now, Dow Jones.

Unfortunately, this appallingly bad sing-along film clip from a Humphrey rally exists in a bit of ABC News Footage  from a Humphrey rally, with a decidedly younger Sam Donaldson chiming in at the end.  Let's just say had this musical debacle been seen across the country in an ad and not on the news, Nixon wouldn't have squeaked to a victory.  He'd have won in a landslide as he did four years later. 

College football fans should recognize the tune, also adapted into the University of South Carolina's official fight song. "The Fighting Gamecocks Lead The Way."

1972 CAMPAIGN

Richard Nixon: "Nixon Now"

Note the decidedly country tone of this number, reflecting the Republicans' Southern Strategy I previously mentioned.  Who are the artists? The Mike Curb Congregation, a studio vocal group led by Curb, a musician, arranger and record executive who later became California's Republican Lieutenant Governor. 

Two years earlier, in 1970, Curb, then president of MGM Records, concerned over drug use among rock acts. booted both the Velvet Underground and the Mothers of Invention (led by the vehemently anti-drug Frank Zappa), off the label, a bit of grandstanding that earned him far more ridicule than praise within the music industry. 

Today Curb heads head of Nashville's Curb Records, who singer Tim McGraw just bested in a court battle that freed him of his contract with the label.  But that was all in the future when he cranked out this listless bit of political fluff.

George McGovern: "Come Home America"

This... is Johnny Rivers, the hard rocker of "Secret Agent Man" fame during his hippie period, singing Democrat George McGovern's official campaign song: "Come Home America," one of those insipidly wussy coffeehouse ballads that any smart consultant should have nixed. It basically confirmed the Nixon campaign's distorted view of McGovern (a decorated World War II B-17 pilot) as the candidate of the liberal, draft-dodging unwashed. The Nixonians at the time referred to McGovern's platform as "Amnesty, Abortion and Acid" (LSD), another untruth. Oh well. 

Part II coming soon.

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