You Shook Me All Campaign Long You Shook Me All Campaign Long Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond EDITED BY Eric T. Kasper and Benjamin S. Schoening ©2018 University of North Texas Press All rights reserved. Printed in Canada 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Permissions: University of North Texas Press 1155 Union Circle #311336 Denton, TX 76203-5017 The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48.1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kasper, Eric T., author, editor, writer of introduction. | Schoening, Benjamin S., 1978- editor, writer of introduction. Title: You shook me all campaign long : music in the 2016 presidential election and beyond / edited by Eric T. Kasper and Benjamin S. Schoening. Description: Denton, Texas : University of North Texas Press, [2018] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018030231| ISBN 9781574417340 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781574417456 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Music--Political aspects--United States--History--21 st century. | Presidents--United States--Election--2016. | Campaign songs--United States--21st century--History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML3917.U6 Y68 2018 | DDC 781.5/990973090512--dc23 LC record available at https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A %2F%2Flccn.loc.gov%2F2018030231&data=01%7C01%7Ckaren.devinney %40unt.edu%7Cbc7ee94d4ce24da8c61108d5fd2b629f %7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0&sdata=RCKaP2yvdh4Uwe1bo7RKlObBDeb %2FvX3n35WV8ddVCfo%3D&reserved=0 The electronic edition of this book was made possible by the support of the Vick Family Foundation. Table of Contents Introduction: Tippecanoe and Trump Too Eric T. Kasper (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) Benjamin S. Schoening (University of North Georgia) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter One:This Is What Democracy Sounds Like Justin Patch (Vassar College) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Chapter Two:“Not My President” Lars J. Kristiansen (James Madison University) . . . . . . . . . . 51 Chapter Three: Rapping for a Revolution Eunice Rojas (Furman University) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Chapter Four: Political Music, Media Spectacle, and Organizational Communication Competence Nancy A. Wiencek (Rider University) Jonathan Millen (Rider University) David R. Dewberry (Rider University) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Chapter Five: We the People Sing Eric T. Kasper (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Chapter Six: Ameritude Quentin Vieregge (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire —Barron County) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Chapter Seven: This Is Our Fight Song Kate Zittlow Rogness (Hamline University) . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Chapter Eight: “Weapons of Mass Distraction” Lily E. Hirsch (California State University, Bakersfield) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 vi You Shook Me All Campaign Long Chapter Nine: Trump the Musical Prophet Daniel Oore (University of Toronto) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Chapter Ten: “Pub Fight” Politics David Wilson (Stanford University) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 Contributors’ Bios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351 You Shook Me All Campaign Long Introduction Tippecanoe and Trump Too A Brief History of Why Music Matters in Presidential Campaigns Eric T. Kasper (University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire) Benjamin S. Schoening (University of North Georgia) Music has played a role in American presidential campaigns since some of our first elections. Though not as prominent at the time, parodied songs were repurposed as early as the reelection of George Washington in 1792 in an attempt to sway the electorate, and they started to become standard practice in the 1796 contest between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. 1 Music usage has not been static though; rather, the way in which music has played a part in presidential elections has changed dramatically over time, moving from parody to original composition to pre-existing songs. New technologies—including advancements in movable type lithography, radio, television, and the Internet—have also influenced the relationships among candidates, music, and the electorate. Regardless of these technological changes, it is ultimately communica- tion and emotion that make music so important in the framework of pres- idential campaigns. Music has long been a vehicle by which campaigns 2 You Shook Me All Campaign Long could relay important messages about their candidates or disparage their opposition. Early on, this was primarily accomplished through parody, or changing the lyrics of a popular song, in whole or part, to produce new meaning. This also made songs very effective in conveying campaign messages. People would attend rallies and hear these new words sung to familiar tunes and, through music, spread the word about a particular candidate. In modern elections, candidates have primarily expressed themselves musically through “canned” songs: pre-existing popular tunes that are appropriated by campaigns without changing musical notes or lyrics. Given the wide range of the contemporary pop music catalogue, a well-chosen song can say something effective about a candidate, and, if the association is strong enough between a song and a candidate, may even offer another means of advertising for a candidate through play on the radio or other mediums. 2 Tapping into the emotion of the electorate is just as important for presidential candidates. Many books have been written about the power of music and its connection with the brain and human emotion. 3 Music has the power to heighten an existing mood or change our overall disposition. 4 It has the capability to bond groups of people together. 5 It is this emotional power that campaigns also work to exploit within the electorate; they attempt to form bonds in voters’ minds between candidates (including their ideas) and the music that is played at campaign stops, rallies, conventions, and in television advertisements. Regardless of the way in which campaigns choose to use music, its enduring power in presidential campaigns is indisputable. The first watershed moment in the use of campaign music occurred in the election of 1840, which featured William Harrison against incumbent President Martin Van Buren. While numerous songs were written or parodied for the election, it was “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” set to the famous tune of “Three Little Pigs,” that demonstrated the growing dominance of songs in elections. 6 This was the first moment where the power of music to affect the electorate in a presidential election Tippecanoe and Trump Too 3 was significantly documented. In fact, the song was so popular that Helen Johnson wrote in The North American Review that the song “sang Harrison into the presidency.” 7 An anonymous Democrat of the day followed up that sentiment by noting that “[w]e have been sung down, lied down [and] drunk down.” 8 As was observed by journalist Irwin Silber, the song “firmly established the power of singing as a campaign device,” 9 thus beginning the singing campaigns of the 1800s. Several factors explain why this song was so effective. First, the Jacksonian reforms of the 1820s and 1830s greatly expanded the electorate by eliminating property qualifications for voting rights, and this larger electorate included more people without formal education; 10 thus, a need emerged to communicate campaign messages in new, non-written ways, including through the singing of song. Furthermore, by the 1830s, candidates for the presidency were no longer selected by the congressional King Caucus system, but were instead nominated by national conventions, giving the parties and the public more say over who those candidates would be, 11 resulting in candidates needing to connect with voters on a more emotional level, such as through music. Finally, improvements in printing press technology made it significantly easier and cheaper by 1840 to mass produce typed materials, 12 including songbooks, thus allowing for tunes like “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” to be widely distributed in print form. All of these factors combined to lead campaigns to reach the people more effectively via song. The 1860 election was a four-way contest featuring Republican Abraham Lincoln, Democrat Stephen Douglas, Constitutional Union Party candidate John Bell, and Southern Democrat John C. Breckenridge. This election had one of the most recognizable campaign songs supporting Lincoln, titled “Lincoln and Liberty, Too,” which was set to the tune of the well-liked “Rosin the Beau.” 13 This election and song are notable for a second reason as well. The text of “Lincoln and Liberty, Too” was written by Jesse Hutchinson, one of the members of the Hutchinson Family Singers, who were quite popular by 1860. 14 This was possibly 4 You Shook Me All Campaign Long the first celebrity endorsement of a presidential candidate by a singer lending both their skill and the value of their name to a campaign; it is an early precursor to a trend that caught on in the twentieth century and has been a stalwart in modern campaigns. Around the turn of the twentieth century, there was a new development in campaign music with candidates, in part, moving away from some of the singing traditions and the use of parodied song by incorporating popular music styles and compositions in campaigns. It was at this time that Ragtime music was starting to show its popularity and could be identified as one of the first truly American musical genres. 15 It was also during this era that the composers and song writers of Tin Pan Alley were establishing themselves as the center of popular music publication. 16 As these genres became trendy, candidates began to see the benefit of incorporating original songs into their campaigns, written in these popular styles: “A familiar tune can assist with the memorization of a song, but having a new composition in the style of the latest and greatest [musical] craze can effectively establish one’s position as a candidate who is with the times and aware of the issues that are important to the electorate.” 17 This new trend toward the use of popular music and popular musicians, while not at this juncture fully embracing the world of canned songs, foreshadows the ways in which campaigns would tend to choose to use music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Nevertheless, the singing campaigns and their accompanied parodied songs still ruled the campaign trail at this time. It was not long after this first use of current popular genres was introduced into presidential politics that another development changed the course of campaigns in a dramatic way. The advent of the radio in the early twentieth century sent campaign music on a new path, putting a swift end to the power and popularity of the singing campaigns that had dominated since 1840. Yet, as Irwin Silber recognized, the radio did not completely eradicate the old traditions. Professionals and amateurs continued to write parodies and publish sheet music for campaigns. On Tippecanoe and Trump Too 5 occasion, a song of this nature even proved to become popular to some extent. In general, though, radio made these endeavors less effective, which led to parodied music that was often uninspired and not very popular, thus making these traditions from the older singing campaigns a poor choice for presidential candidates in this new era. 18 Campaigns during this time were struggling with the new medium of radio, especially as it pertained to music. However, from these strug- gles came a new type of campaign song. The trend that began with Ragtime around the turn of the twentieth century became the norm, with performers and songwriters, such as Al Jolson, lending not only their musical talents but also their celebrity to the campaign. 19 Additionally, this meant that the quality of musical output was vastly improved. While a campaign could capitalize on the use of existing tunes to ensure the audience was familiar, the construction of lyrics within those tunes was not always ideal. These new campaign songs eliminated that issue with fresh lyrics being set to fresh melodies. There are several additional key moments in the twentieth century that lead us to where campaign music currently resides. The first of these moments occurred with Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. When he was looking for a song to represent his campaign at the Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt first gravitated toward “Anchors Away,” which would have emphasized his prior service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. However, he and his brain trust ultimately decided to use the peppier song “Happy Days Are Here Again” as the musical message of the campaign. 20 What makes this song unique was that it was employed without any alterations to text or music. In other words, Roosevelt took an existing, essentially canned, song and turned it into the theme of his campaign. Toward the end of the twentieth century, this became a trend followed by virtually all campaigns. Another new technology emerged in the election of 1952. This was the first time that television was featured prominently as part of presidential campaigns. 21 This new medium changed many things about presidential 6 You Shook Me All Campaign Long campaigns, and that included the way music would be utilized, something evident with both major party nominees that year, Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. However, of the two, Eisenhower’s campaign was by far the more effective in the way it used this new medium to merge music and image together. Eisenhower’s campaign took an approach out of the Saturday morning cartoons. The campaign combined an original song, “I Like Ike,” with an animated feature. This 60-second ad played this song over animated characters marching along with “Ike” banners while following Uncle Sam. What made this ad so effective, ultimately, was its imagery, which included the following: [T]he elephant, the traditional symbol of the Republican Party, carrying a sheet on its back with Eisenhower’s picture and having a sheet tied to its trunk with the word “Ike” written on it. The elephant also pulled a drum which it was pounding with a mallet held in its tail. In addition, . . . the song and the ad depicted three prominent Democrats as donkeys . . . The crowd of supporters was constantly moving forward (towards the right of the screen from the viewer’s perspective). 22 This marriage of music with the moving image, something that tele- vision allowed on a large scale like no past medium, launched a new day in presidential campaigns. Candidates now had yet another way to express their messages via song, and they could do it in innovative ways. John F. Kennedy would employ a similar strategy in his 1960 campaign, utilizing a combination of music and image to represent his campaign on the television. Perhaps his most famous political ad did not have a title, but it is often referred to simply as “Kennedy.” The song combined an original composition with many still images, including several of the candidate. In this case, the song is much more famous and memorable than the images of the ad itself. Importantly for the future president, the song relied on a repetition technique, mentioning Kennedy’s name 26 times over the course of sixty seconds. 23 Tippecanoe and Trump Too 7 The Kennedy campaign was also noteworthy because it helped bring about the reemergence of the parodied song. 24 As part of the 1960 campaign, Kennedy was able to incorporate the song “High Hopes” into his election year efforts. “High Hopes” was from the film A Hole in the Head and won the 1959 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Further, the song spent the entire summer of 1959 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. 25 Kennedy adopted the song in the true parody fashion, changing lyrics to specifically insert the candidate’s name and speak about his virtues. Yet, in this case, the campaign chose to leave the hook of the song intact, allowing the audience to stay connected, both musically and textually, to the original composition. Perhaps the larger impact with the use of “High Hopes” was that Kennedy was able to garner the use of celebrity with performances of the song by Frank Sinatra, another key aspect to music in this campaign. 26 This ensured that a popular celebrity endorsed the future president, meaning that the artist would not object to the candidate’s use of the song, a problem that would plague future White House hopefuls. Indeed, the affiliation and association of campaigns with famous musical personalities has become commonplace in modern presidential campaigns. This has also led to celebrities fighting to protect their music from campaigns, even if used legally, over implied endorsements and the guarding of their image from opposing political views. While not the first candidate to play canned music, Ronald Reagan would finally establish what was begun by Roosevelt more than fifty years earlier by reigniting the use of the canned song, this time to become an ongoing trend. Reagan did this by adopting Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” in his 1984 presidential campaign. For Reagan, the song held a simple patriotic message that was easily communicated with the electorate. Furthermore, the song was exceedingly popular at the time, spending 10 weeks on Billboard ’s Country Singles chart in the same year. 27 This new-found trend has led to some of the most memorable musical moments in presidential campaigns (e.g., Bill Clinton’s use in 8 You Shook Me All Campaign Long 1992 of “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac) and some follies as well (e.g., Ross Perot’s choice of “Crazy” by Patsy Cline in the same campaign). 28 There are positive and negative implications when a presidential campaign repurposes a canned song. On the positive side, a campaign can benefit from the immediate recognition that the electorate has with the song. Particularly if the song in currently on the radio, it can constitute free advertising for a campaign. For example, in the case of Roosevelt’s use of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the tune was used in the 1930 film Chasing Rainbows and was still quite popular in 1932. 29 This can be a boon to a campaign as the song might still be receiving frequent radio airplay, thus offering free reinforcement of the candidate and their message. Further, campaigns do not need to wait for amateurs to create songs or work with composers/songwriters to have original works written for their campaigns that may or may not prove to be effective. Thus, a song that is already known to have a positive reception is ready upon demand. However, canned music has the potential to produce some less desirable outcomes as well. First, as the content of the song is not tailored to speak more specifically about the candidate or the campaign, conflicting messages could be received by the public. This factor did not come into play with Roosevelt’s choice, as the song in its entirety helped Roosevelt to espouse the popular message that he could lead the country out of the Great Depression. Put another way, there were not lyrics subject to a great deal of misrepresentation or misapplication. But as more and more candidates adopted this strategy, they often relied on the hook of the song to deliver the message instead of the entire song as in the cases of Roosevelt and Reagan. For example, in Bill Clinton’s choice of “Don’t Stop,” the hook of the song delivers a powerful message to the electorate of hope for a brighter future. But when looking at the song in its entirety, it was originally written about the impending divorce between two members of Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie and John McVie 30 (not necessarily a desirable message for a presidential campaign). In this way, Tippecanoe and Trump Too 9 campaigns are relying on the ever shorter attention span of the public to convey their message when using a canned song. Another unintended consequence is negative publicity from artists who do not want a candidate using their music. And this can occur in several forms. For instance, if a campaign plays a song without first securing copyright permission, this can lead to a cease and desist order (e.g., when Tom Petty ordered George W. Bush to stop using “I Won’t Back Down” in 2000) or, worse, a lawsuit (e.g., when Jackson Browne sued John McCain in 2008 for using “Running on Empty”). 31 However, even when a campaign has secured the copyright permissions to use a song, that does not always mean that the artist supports a particular candidate’s use of their performance of that song, which can lead to just as much negative publicity if the artist publicly objects. By the 2008 election cycle, the Internet was fundamentally changing campaign music norms. For instance, as it became easier for the average person to post on websites like YouTube, songs like “I Got a Crush on Obama” could go viral without any planning by, or involvement from, the candidate who was the subject of the song. 32 This remained relatively rare in 2008 but would be the genesis of a trend that exploded in 2016. In an effort to actively involve voters, for the 2008 campaign Hillary Clinton permitted her supporters to select her theme song (Celine Dion’s “You and I”) in an online poll, although she later stopped using the song in favor of other music. 33 By 2012, it was commonplace for a candidate receiving his or her party’s nomination to release a campaign playlist on the Spotify music streaming service. 34 There is no doubt that the history of campaign music is long, vibrant, and ever changing. The 2016 presidential election was no different. Indeed, the relevance of music in the 2016 campaign for the White House took various forms and was constantly present in American media. Hillary Clinton made use of a music service agency and put a playlist on Spotify. 35 Donald Trump earned the scorn of various artists—including Neil Young, Steven Tyler, Adele, and the Rolling Stones—after playing their songs at 10 You Shook Me All Campaign Long campaign events (a phenomenon explored in multiple chapters below). Bernie Sanders received high praise from many commentators for his use of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America” in a television advertisement. 36 A music-licensing firm sued Ted Cruz over his use of background music in television ads. 37 Marco Rubio publicly expressed his affinity for hip- hop music. 38 Almost all candidates took steps to secure endorsements from musical celebrities, and some candidates sang or played musical instruments while campaigning. Moreover, to a greater degree than ever before, the creation and dissemination of “unofficial” musical activity on the Internet and in live performances provided musical artists and others opportunities to shape political discourse in ways that were wholly outside of the control of candidates and campaigns. Taken in its totality, 2016 was a transformative election regarding music. However, this transformation can be best understood as the culmination of various changes to how music was used in campaigns for the last several presidential elections. In other words, what we saw in 2016 was the outgrowth of past developments, leading to a greater than ever use of popular music by campaigns, more and more musical artist endorsements sought by candidates, the employment of musical consultants, ever changing songs at campaign rallies, the burgeoning instances of musicians threatening legal action against candidates using their art, and an increase in artists and others using music as a form of political protest during and after the campaign. These are either new developments this cycle, or they were taken to a higher level than previously observed. In their totality, these trends coalesced to make the 2016 campaign the most significant one for music since the seminal 1840 election. It represented a culmination of emerging trends in recent election cycles and, in other ways, planted seeds for the future use of music in presidential campaigns. The chapters that follow will explore some of the new and thought-provoking trends of this election and how they may signal change for the future.