Orrin Hatch and John McCain, Hipsters
by DHinMI
Wed Apr 23, 2008 at 06:52:02 PM PDT
Not content to sit on the sidelines, longtime senator and one-time presidential hopeful Orrin Hatch has penned a song for his Senate buddy John McCain in hopes of helping his White House bid.
Really, he did.
Hatch - a Utah Republican who won a platinum award for helping co-write lyrics for a song that sold more than a million records - crafted a tune called "Together Forever" for the presumptive Republican nominee.
"Forever together / America is the land we're fighting for / There's a time in history / for a hero's destiny / together forever more," says Hatch's song, co-written with composer Philip Springer, famous for the Christmas song, "Santa Baby"...
"We'll see Barack Obama's Bruce Springsteen endorsement and raise them an Orrin Hatch," a [McCain] spokesman said.
What do the kids think?
[A]ccording to Hardball, while Hatch's office says he was aiming for an upbeat song that would appeal to the youth vote, the song doesn't mimic anything found on the Top 40 - or even the next 40.
Jason Mattera, spokesman for the conservative Young America's Foundation, says the lyrics are fine but the beats and tempo are "not appealing to young people.
"Hatch's heart is in the right place, but he has the wrong decade," Mattera says, noting that the message to attract young people is that liberalism oppresses people, stifles freedom and causes "pervasive destitution. I give him credit for trying, though," Mattera adds.
What, are you surprised he didn't say "I like it, it's got a good beat, you can march to it, I give it an 86?"
Really, though, it's hard to blame McCain (who was born in 1936) or Hatch (who was born two years earlier). Many people, myself included, think that one's love of music is heavily shaped by the music you experience as a child. And look at was was happening in music in 1936:
George Gershwin was still alive, Cole Porter was in his prime, Rodgers and Hart were collaborating, Leadbelly published "Goodnight, Irene," Count Basie and Nat Cole began their careers, and Benny Goodman was selling a bunch of records. It wouldn't be accurate to say, however, that Benny Goodman was tearing up the charts, because the Billboard Charts hadn't been created. In fact, the 45 single and the 33 1/3 LP hadn't been invented yet.
It wasn't a good year to be a Russian, as Uncle Joe Stalin was still collectivizing and purging, but it was a good year for Russian music: Prokofiev debuted Peter and the Wolf, Shastakovich wrote his Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, and Rachmaninoff wrote his Symphony No. 3.
That's all good stuff. But other than maybe Cole Porter, not much of that music is considered particularly hip by today's standards. So one can partially forgive Orin Hatch and John McCain for not being very hip; they didn't grow up in time for it to be easy for them to be hip.
For fun, though, lets look at what was happening musically in 1961, the year Barack Obama was born:
In 1961 the charts—yes, they had been around for some time by 1961—were topped by some great songs like Ben E. King's "Stand by Me" and "Spanish Harlem," the Miracles' "Shop Around," Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces," the Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman," Etta James' "At Last," Roy Orbison's "Crying" and Ray Charles' "Hit the Road, Jack." John Coltrane released "My Favorite Things," Oliver Nelson released "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" and Dave Brubeck released "Take Five."
In 1961 Bob Dylan traveled to NYC to meet Woody Guthrie, and the Beatles were playing in Hamburg.
Oh, there was another significant musical event in 1961; the recordings of an almost forgotten delta bluesman by the name of Robert Johnson were released on the album King of the Delta Blues Singers. These old scratchy recordings were a big inspiration to future rock and rollers such as The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton/Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.
The almost forgotten recordings, by the way, had mostly been recorded in 1936.
