The GOP’s Musical Chutzpah

Matthew Green — June 9, 2010 – 3:33 pm | GOP Hypocrisies | Republicans Comments (0) Add a comment

When it comes to pilfering music, most people think of teenagers illegally downloading songs off of file-sharing networks. But long before the advent of Napster - or even the internet, for that matter - the music industry had an unusual foe on the matter of unauthorized song usage: GOP political candidates.

TPM’s Eric Kleefeld reminded readers that Republican candidates have a history of using songs before getting permission to do so. In an article published Monday, Kleefeld pointed to President Ronald Reagan’s unauthorized use of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics in 1984, Sen. Bob Dole’s re-write of “Soul Man,” to “Dole Man,” in 1996, and George W. Bush’s misuse of “Still The One,” in 2004, as contributing to a narrative of campaign negligence on the part of the GOP.

Recently, Republicans have come under fire for even more unauthorized use of music. As Kleefeld reported,

“Senate candidate Chuck DeVore (R-CA) got burned for using for using altered-lyric version of Don Henley’s ‘The Boys of Summer’ and ‘All She Wants To Do Is Dance’ for his campaign’s Web ads. David Byrne is suing Gov. Charlie Crist (I-FL) for using ‘Road To Nowhere’ in a Web ad during his previous Republican Senate primary fight, and of course, as we reported yesterday, Rush cut to the chase and told Senate nominee Rand Paul (R-KY) to stop playing ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘The Spirit of Radio.’”

Kleefeld also mentioned that during the 2008 election, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) drew criticism from John Hall, Jackson Browne, Van Halen, the Wilson Sisters from Heart, and John Mellencamp, for supposedly using their songs without permission.

After years of neglecting the music industry’s rules, this year’s election cycle may finally be the time for all candidates to face the music about carelessly selecting campaign songs.

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