"Are we still producing anthemic songs that everyone can know and sing anymore? Songs like 'We Will Rock You,' 'Living on a Prayer' and 'Sweet Caroline'?"

"... The difference is, back in those songs’ eras, people across demographics still seemed to know and enjoy them. Whether from performances on Johnny Carson’s 'Tonight Show,' spins on Casey Kasem’s 'American Top 40' or others, that was a time of cultural commonalities regardless of personal taste or ideology.... When I perform older songs such as 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' everyone sings the chorus.... Yet for their modern-day equivalents, that’s far less likely. By not singing communally, we lose the emotional experience to feel bonded with those from other groups or ideologies. This lack of kinship plays out across multiple domains throughout our society with more serious impact. Studies and surveys find Americans in the 2010s and 2020s are increasingly unlikely to have cross-ideology friendships, to live near neighbors who disagree politically, or to date across party lines."

Writes piano-bar musician Jesse Rifkin, in "I perform at a piano bar. The most requested song might surprise you. So long 'Piano Man.' Chappell Roan’s ode to a gay bar now draws the most requests" (WaPo).

One thing Rifkin seems blind to is TikTok. At least for "Take Me Home Country Roads," one reason the old song is known today is through extreme repetition on TikTok.

For an extra-charming example, look at this:

"Climb aboard the Almost Heaven, which is somewhere between a trawler and a yacht, big and boxy."

"Step inside the cabin and marvel at the creature comforts: a semicircular, plush-leather couch with a matching ottoman, glass cabinets trimmed with dark wood, a marble dining-room table with thick white candles... Below deck, the master bedroom is cozy but well-appointed.... There's a guest room.... Up on the party deck, amid the wrought-iron chairs and tables with umbrellas, you might see Trump-allied Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), just months removed from objecting to President Biden’s election, talking college football with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 'Pete’s from Notre Dame,' said Tuberville.... On one evening cruise, some years back, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was so moved by the picturesque Washington skyline that she began singing 'God Bless America.'....  Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), an Almost Heaven regular, has regaled fellow passengers with 'American Pie.'... 'All I’m saying is I don’t think our Founding Fathers anticipated the survival of this democratic experiment to rest in the hands of a man who lives in a house boat,' Jenna Valle-Riestra, a press secretary for the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a now-deleted tweet...  [The boat is] a place where deals can be floated and bills can get watered down. Where trust can live, if fleetingly, among people whose constituents don’t trust each other at all.... For some that sounds like Almost Heaven. For other’s that’s just a nice way to describe living in limbo."

 From "Washington’s hottest club is Joe Manchin’s houseboat" (WaPo).

The name of the boat is the first 2 words of John Denver's beloved song about Joe Manchin's state. 

Does Manchin actually live on the boat? Yes, it is his residence when he is in Washington, The Washingtonian reported back in February: "Manchin lives on a boat because he doesn’t like living here." Republicans attacked him for owning an expensive boat, but it was cheap compared to the price of land-based housing in Washington.  

And John Denver didn't write that song, and the song wasn't really written about West Virginia! It's about Gaithersburg, Maryland or maybe Massachusetts:

Stop the nay-saying — neigh-saying? — this is delightful and lovable.

I wish they could bring John Denver back to life just so he could sue Mark Zuckerberg for this.

pic.twitter.com/SDAWsIByOh

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) July 4, 2021

Via Instapundit, who says "But since this didn’t happen by accident, why is Zuck suddenly trying to look like a patriotic redneck? Because there’s a reason."

There are depths, presumably, but purely superficially, it's delightful and lovable. It's silly, corny Americana. Perfect for the 4th (the 5th). 

And it makes a nice contrast to that NYT article we were all reading yesterday: "A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite/In a Long Island town, neighbors now make assumptions, true and sometimes false, about people who conspicuously display American flags."

Politicians of both parties have long sought to wrap themselves in the flag. But something may be changing: Today, flying the flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation. 

Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump have embraced the flag so fervently — at his rallies, across conservative media and even during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — that many liberals.... worry that the left has all but ceded the national emblem to the right. 

"Though the theme songs to the film 'Bonnie & Clyde' (1967) and the CBS sitcom 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' both recorded by Flatt and Scruggs, preceded 'Dueling Banjos'..."

"... in exposing wide audiences to bluegrass, neither made it to the pop Top 40. 'Dueling Banjos,' which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 movie 'Deliverance,' fared far better, rising to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart.... As a session player he appeared on Judy Collins’s 'Fifth Album,' contributing guitar to her 1965 version of 'Pack Up Your Sorrows.' He played banjo on John Denver’s 1971 Top 10 pop hit, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads.' His fretwork was heard on albums like Bob Dylan’s 'Blood on the Tracks' (1974), Billy Joel’s 'Piano Man' (1973) and the Talking Heads’ 'Little Creatures' (1985)."

From "Eric Weissberg, ‘Dueling Banjos’ Musician, Dies at 80/His melodic banjo work on a 1973 hit single (heard in the movie 'Deliverance') helped usher bluegrass music into the cultural mainstream" (NYT).

I was going to embed the scene from "Deliverance," but the visual aspect of it is creepy and not what I want right now, as evidenced by my instinct to go to "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The link goes to the studio version. There's a comment there from a week ago: "West Virginia is the last state without Coronavirus and that’s why I listen to this song."

"Tipper Gore's Diary" — a page from the January 1986 issue of Spin magazine.

This is something I hit on googling "joni mitchell lyrics peppermint" as I was blogging a magazine article about the loveliness of the Kate Spade retail store that contained the line "listening to Joni Mitchell and eating peppermints while we waited for customers." I had the feeling there was a Joni Mitchell song with the word "peppermints." I was wrong, but I love what I found looking for something that didn't exist:



In 1986, Al Gore was a Senator:

Gore was one of the Atari Democrats who were given this name due to their "passion for technological issues, from biomedical research and genetic engineering to the environmental impact of the "greenhouse effect."... [H]e has been described as having been a "genuine nerd, with a geek reputation running back to his days as a futurist Atari Democrat in the House. Before computers were comprehensible, let alone sexy, the poker-faced Gore struggled to explain artificial intelligence and fiber-optic networks to sleepy colleagues."... Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986....

At that time, his then-wife Tipper was on a Prince-triggered rampage against dirty lyrics:

In 1985, Tipper Gore co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)... because Gore heard her then 11-year-old daughter Karenna playing "Darling Nikki" by Prince. The group's goal was to increase parental and consumer awareness of music that contained explicit content through voluntary labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers... Gore explained that her purpose wasn't to put a "gag" on music, but to keep it safe for younger listeners by providing parents with information about the content of the songs. A number of individuals including Dee Snider of Twisted Sister,[21] Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, John Denver, Joey Ramone, and Frank Zappa criticized the group, arguing that it was a form of censorship....

What's John Denver doing on that list?!

Folk rock musician John Denver stated he was "strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society or anywhere else in the world", and that in his experience censors often misinterpret music, as was the case with his song "Rocky Mountain High"...

I presume that means the song was interpreted to refer to getting high on drugs.

When Denver came up to give his speech, many on the PMRC board expected him to side with them, thinking he would be offended by the lyrics as well...

He was offended by censorship (and agreed with the broad meaning of what counts as censorship).

Anyway, you can see why Spin magazine was making fun of Tipper Gore in 1986. Click the image of the article to enlarge it enough to read. There's some great stuff in there and a nice illustration by Sara Schwartz. I'll just leave you with the song title that made that article show up in my Google search, "Peppermint Stick" by The Elchords:



I'll leave it to you to decide whether that 1958 recording contains the line "Peppermint stick/Eat my dick."