Elections don't make for great subject matter for music (or art in general). They are typically uneventful in most countries. And most would rather sing about love, conflict, loss or betrayal. Audiences don't favor the banal when escapism, gossip, or spicy takes are available.
Still, there is a certain strain of art that emerges when elections are contentious, or if the personalities involved are striking in some way. The loss may hurt more, the win might be long overdue, or against all odds, the results might be shocking...
Joy, shock, upheaval or outrage rightly deserve an artistic response. In contrast, the poet of the quotidian lives in considered penury, envious of her more successful peers.
Hands down, the greatest artistic reaction to an election is B-movie by Gil Scott Heron. It starts with the immortal line "Mandate, my ass", and goes on from deconstructing Ronald Reagan's 1980 election to painting a pointillist portrait of a nostalgia-ridden USA (said nostalgia endures).
Beyond the biting poetry, set to that militaristic bassline, the performance benefits from its panoramic scope that moves beyond Skippy's loss, and RayGun's ascension, to a cold-eyed assessment of the wider culture.
(His band would soon be renamed the Selective Amnesia Express.)
The song, B-movie, like the earlier Winter in America, continues to resonate due to the range of his ambition and careful economy of the execution. The sparse musical arrangement is just the icing on the cake.
The prescient lyrics, of course, diagnosed, at length, Bush 2004 and Trump's MAGA appeal:
The idea concerns the fact that this country wants nostalgia
They want to go back as far as they can -
even if it's only as far as last week
Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards
But if B-movie is sui generis, what about the more routine reactions? Sticking to music and what is available on YouTube music, and focusing on the USA, I give you a representative
playlist of twenty songs that cover the past twenty years. As usual, I have a few thoughts (call them liner notes)...
The most recent reaction songs started right after the November 2024 US election. The most typical response contains the expected mix of disgust, I told you so, you've made your bed, now lie in it, this is your mess etc. In short, schadenfreude, anger and fear prevail.
While I understand the impulse and there's certainly the urge to react, politics remains a contact sport. One wonders: what is the intent of all this sound and fury? What is the underlying theory of change?
Anger may motivate to wrath while disappointment often leads to depression and disengagement. Perhaps the idea is that even though writing in righteous anger, or singing the blues, may not change the world, their palliative relief is very welcome. Perhaps we should look elsewhere for change.
(But perhaps I'm not the wisest person to opine on such matters, after all I've written 5,000 words on an
html button, 7,000 words on
a taxonomy useful idiots, and even 9,000 words on a
bookmarked tag. What change did I drive?)
Every act of creation should be celebrated. Moving on...
The most impressive finding comes from the aptly-named band,
Friends of USAID. Newly-formed in 2025, they fully embrace the satirical mantle. Opening this playlist is the just-released
I Voted For This. A delicate duo, melding male and female voices, they add sweet insult to injury
Calm delivery, sample lyrics:
My cousin's kid caught the measles - I guess that's kinda sad
But at least she won't have to learn how slavery was bad
The crops are dying, the aid is gone, but I don't care 'bout that
At least I don't have to speak Mexican and hear 'bout them eating cats
The inspired band name highlights the the Doge cuts that have decimated the mission of the eponymous agency. The artwork of the 15 singles they have released this year accentuate the effect. As do the songs themselves sample titles:
Thoughts and Prayers, inc,
Reverse Robin Hood (The Tariff Two-Step).
I hope that, like
Randy Rainbow, they commit to the bit and continue to release more music. They have an album's worth of material already. We could all do with more biting satire to leaven the next few years.
More typical in the 2025 crop is
You Voted For This Fool by Lazy Radiographer which reeks with disgust. The chorus:
"You chose the fire / Now feel the cost / Watch freedom burn / While you praise the boss"
This Is What You Voted For (I Hope You're Happy) by After Everything continues in the vein of anger and outrage. It's rock-infused so less restrained. Lyric:
"Sooner or later they'll come for you and you'll be the next in line". Bleach is the cover of their last album title A-Jax Everywhere
Is This What You Voted For? by Rhett Sawyer is more earnest and conciliatory, seeking to question and start a conversation. He's a country musician worried about his country and reels a litany of problems starting with
"a land of the lost, locked up and poor", and carrying on from there
Cory Legendre is all bitterness in
You Get What You Voted For - off his album,
We Tried To Tell You (cover with Putin and Musk and a sitting Trump). Albeit looking at vote counts in the recent election, I'd hope the b-side would address those who didn't vote.
Lopkerjo has fully signed up with the resistance and has
Nobody Voted For This, the titular track of his furious album... Still, methinks that
Liz Cheney Hero of Integrity is where I step off (I would have added a question mark to that song title at the very least, but your mileage may vary).
Late in 2024, Me & Melancholy wounded by Trump's victory released
We Never Voted For This. Working fast but protesting too much, I think. Who is the We he is talking about? I would rather point him in the direction of Antibalas's 2010 album,
Who is this America Dem Speak of Today?
YaBoi Dirty is more philosophical with
Who You Voted For. His is more a plague o' both your houses missive. The kind of demoralized outlook that would lower voter turnout - and perhaps that is the point of his intervention. Politicians are crooks, spokesmen for the rich etc...
Stepping back to 2022, we have part of Ben Frank's standup comedy routine which is riffing on political hypocrisy with
This Is What You Voted For. The private sexual mores versus the public severe prudity. Cynicism about the bonafides of leaders.
Turn to hip-hop also in 2022, Mr Trumptastic released
You Voted For Jb You Must Be Smoking Dope. He'd had enough of a whole year of Joe Biden's presidency and was looking forward to Trump's rightful return. One wonders if he'll have more to say for the current moment.
in 2021, Art Neuro, more punk than rock, chimed in with
This Is The Stuff You Voted For taken from his Sadistic Ineptitude album. Not quite mellifluous, his is a rather acidic take.
Preaching reconciliation in 2021, JCAR93 weighs in with
Come Together (Even If You Voted For Trump), trap rap noodling. I suspect The Beatles were more artistically successful being all sugary and omitting the snark.
In 2020 from England, we have
If You Voted For This Then You Are Part Of The Problem by Dannydangerously, his grime flow is less outraged at Boris Johnson's shenanigans than of his countrymen's continued voting for the Tories. England was then
the new epicenter of the covid pandemic.
In 2015, Me Time released
You Voted For This. Again punk-inflected, and furious about the GOP's assault (presumably under Bush) on gun control, the EPA, bloody wars, corporate cronyism.
"Thank God we chose to back the GOP / The world is a wasteland / It's piles of grass, ash and sand"
Also in 2015, The Walking Toxins chime in with
You Voted For Them. Angry at a fascist state that dropped the bomb (unclear whether it was Obama drones or Bush shock and awe that drew their ire). Like the music they produce here, they are not happy campers.
In 2012, Zygsville sound bewildered in
Who Voted for This, a nice uptempo joint that one can do a line dance to. More musically interesting with some nice guitar licks. Giving the date of the release, I suspect Barack Obama wasn't his favorite but the lyrics are rather ambiguous consequently the song has legs.
In 2008, Beatnik Turtle whistles his acute observations on buyer's remorse, describing how the new guy becomes "the incumbent, he's got the peoples mandate, but he's passing wacky laws now, showing all his flaws and he's the guy that everyone hates. And all of a sudden
nobody voted for this guy"
The humourous point is well taken about how partisans turn quiet when those they put in power screw the pooch. And, quite likely, this year we'll be repeating the observers are worried mantra.
Stylistically, then, the songs are mostly country, rock and punk, perhaps because I stuck to the Anglosphere. It's not easy listening as the singers are trying to provoke a reaction. Where we have hip-hop, the political commentary is a sideshow, braggadocio is a necessity in that form.
I do think that the songs with songs that broaden the perspective will likely endure but I appreciate the lesser works as fodder for the time capsule, cultural artifacts for later historians mining the zeitgeist of these trying times. I hope we make it to the other side.
Bonus beats:
Your Mess by Omar, timeless soul, and an extract from Black Wax the film that featured a live performance by
Gil Scott Heron of B-movie
File under: USA, England, election, humour, satire, music, review, culture, observation, perception, Creative Process, hatchet job, Buyer's Remorse, Observers are worried, toli
Writing log: May 4, 2025
