REVOLVER:WHAT IS it with the White House and music? The first ridiculous incident was when Richard Nixon invited Elvis Presley into the Oval Office back in 1970. The president was impressed by a letter Elvis wrote to him about the "dangers of drugs to society" – something Elvis knew quite a bit about.
Then you had a "Second Lady"m Tipper Gorem launching her Concerned Parents Against Sexy Rock Music Lyrics campaign in the 1990s. Al's wife, bless her, was aghast to hear her 11-year-old daughter listening to the Prince song Darling Nikkiand used her political leverage to introduce Parental Advisory stickers for CDs. The stickers were a huge success, in that teenagers rushed out to buy CDs that had them.
Now Michelle Obama is under a considerable amount of flak for inviting the rapper Common to perform at a White House poetry event, with the president himself in attendance. When Sarah Palin heard of the Common invite she did what she always does when she feels the indignation rising: she took to her Twitter account posting a sarcastic message – “Oh lovely, White House” – and included a link to the “real story” about Common. Said article explains how a past Common lyric called for the burning of George W Bush.
Right enough, that would be from Common's A Letter to the Law, which includes the verse "With that happening, why they messing with Saddam? Burn a Bush cos for peace he no push no button. Killing over oil and grease no weapons of destruction. How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one."
A Fox News site called Common “a vile rapper” and it all got very how dare they at the White House for inviting him to the poetry event – and Obama for sitting in the same room as said vile person.
Journalist Conor Friedersdorf writing in The Atlantic, decided to look into the White House's musical folder to see what other moral transgressions have taken place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was so shocked by his findings he was barely able to steady his hand enough to type his report (see theatlantic.com/conor- friedersdorf).
For example, Friedersdorf found that President George W Bush once talked publicly about his favourite songs on his iPod. They included a song with the lyric “Such a dirty mind, I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind” (The Knack’s My Sharona). Not a tweet out of Sarah Palin about that.
Which is nothing on President Bill Clinton, who once hosted a White House concert by a man who had enthusiastically endorsed cocaine use and openly boasted about cold-bloodedly killing a sheriff (Eric Clapton).
The current incumbent isn’t that much better. Just last year, President Obama not just welcomed but presented a medal to a man who one salaciously sang “She was just 17, you know what I mean” and followed that up later with “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man”; a man who was once a vocal supporter of the Legalise Cannabis Campaign and has in fact done prison time for drugs offences. But nothing out of Sarah Palin on Paul McCartney.
But then The Knack, Clapton and McCartney are all white, while Common is . . . take a guess.
Mixed Bag
LOVE: Been listening tothe new Eddie Vedder solo record. Just him and a ukulele on all the tracks, but don't let that deter you: it's one of the best albums of the year so far.
HATE: Google has launchedits much-heralded "this will save the world" cloud music system, but when you excitedly go to music.google.com to sign up for it, Google says "Go away, Irish person, this is only available in the wonderful USA".
