Make An Entrance

In recent political rallies, Vice Presidential Nominee Paul Ryan has been coming to the stage to the pounding beats of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going To Take It." Now, I like this song for workouts, but in terms of setting a political agenda, I find it to be a little lacking. Honestly, the central message of the song is "we are angry" which works in this political climate, but doesn't really give any reasons as to why or how you plan to remedy the situation. I'm just saying you could go a little more nuanced and help move the campaign forward if you felt like doing ten minutes of research to come up with a better song. Either way, I'm not going to take offense to their choice. The problem for them is that I'm not Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider, who has publicly objected to the campaign using the song. If this sounds like a familiar story that is because just a week ago the Silversun Pickups sent the Romney campaign a cease-and-desist letter to make them stop using their music at speeches (you would think the Silversun Pickups would appreciate any attention they could get). On top of that, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello wrote an article for Rolling Stone in which he essentially told Ryan he shouldn't list the band among his favorites because he represents everything the band is against. All in all it has not been a smooth musical ride.

You could see why Ryan would think his choice of entrance music was ok. After all, Snider campaigned for Schwarzenegger in his run for Governor, so assuming he supported all Republicans isn't a huge jump. But, the main reason this story caught my eye is that I feel like this exact news item comes up every single year (because there is always someone running for something). Actually, there is a long tradition of this in politics from both sides of the aisle. The most famous example is probably Springsteen forbidding Ronald Reagan's campaign from using "Born In The USA" (if anyone should have know the rules about needing music releases before using a song, it should have been the former actor). And on the one hand, you can't really fault the campaigns. Most people aren't as passionate about music as former DJs like myself and when you have that much to organize the entrance music is probably such a low priority that the person in charge forgets about it until the night before and is forced to work off their personal iPod. Also, despite what they claim, I'm sure most of these musicians aren't worried about being affiliated with one party of another, they are pissed their music is being used by these massive fundraising entities who have money to burn without getting paid for it. Send enough cash their way and I'm sure you could use just about any song in the catalog.

That being said, I feel like this story also sums up why I get so annoyed with politicians. As I said before, I read this story every single year. In fact, the only time I know what songs candidates are using for entrance music is if some musician is telling them to stop. Yet no one ever learns from the previous mistakes, which is infuriating. Partly, it reeks of self-importance where these candidate assume these musicians would be thrilled to be associated with them. But mostly, it just appears lazy. If you saw your opponent make a blunder like this wouldn't you try really hard not to repeat it? Seriously, how difficult is it for these people to make a phone call to a record company and get the all-clear? They're not some guy running for city dog catcher; it's the nominee for President for the United States - I'm pretty sure they will return the call. Plus, plenty of acts contribute thousands of dollars to various politicians, so if you just check the list to see who was sending money to which party you will already know who is on your side. Ryan could have used any number of Hank Williams Jr songs and he never would have said a peep. I simply feel this kind of repeated mistake sends a terrible message, because you are failing at what should be an easy task and that does not inspire confidence. If you can't figure out something as simple as getting clearance to use a song for 30 seconds than how can you be expected to tackle complex issues?

Instead, I offer two simple solution to any candidate who is searching for the correct entrance music. First, you could always use foreign acts. Americans get a lot of crap for not paying enough attention to the politics happening in other countries, but rest assured that everyone else is ignoring us just as much as we ignore them. Find a British pop act and come out to their music. By the time they figure out who you are and decide whether or not they want to be associated with you the campaign will probably be over. The second, and decidedly more badass, option is to hire a musician to write your own entrance music, WWE-style. Politics has always felt kind of rigged to me anyway, so you may as well take it the next step. Look, I stopped watching wrestling a decade ago, but if I ever need some bad-ass entrance music I still know exactly where to go to find it. Whatever company is doing that for the professional wrestlers can't be so busy that they couldn't come up with some generic-enough sounding political rally music in a few hours. Not only would it be instantly recognizable and make the crowd go nuts, it would also avoid making you look like an idiot who can't stop repeating their mistakes. Unless you use the "Brooklyn Brawler's" entrance music, because that guy never saw the beating coming.