Campaign song

Campaign song

Campaign songs are partisan ditties used in American political canvasses and more especially in presidential contests. The words were commonly set to established melodies like "Yankee Doodle," "Hail, Columbia," "Rosin the Bow," "Hail to the Chief" "John Brown's Body," "Dixie" and "O Tannenbaum" ("Maryland, My Maryland"); or to tunes widely popular at the time, such as "Few Days," "Champagne Charlie," "The Wearing of the Green" or "Down in a Coal Mine," which served for "Up in the White House." Perhaps the best known of them was "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too," (in which words by Alexander C. Ross were adapted to the folk tune, "Little Pigs"). First heard at Zanesville, Ohio, this spread rapidly over the country, furnishing a party slogan. It has been said: "What the Marseilles Hymn was to Frenchmen, 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too' was to the Whigs of 1840." In 1872 an attempt was made to revive the air for "Greeley Is the Real True Blue." The words, sometimes with music, of campaign songs were distributed in paper-covered song books or "songsters." Among these were the Log Cabin Song Book of 1840 and Hutchinson's Republican Songster for the Presidential campaign of 1860, compiled by J. W. Hutchinson. For many years national campaigns included itinerant stumpspeakers, live animals, fife-and-drum corps, red fire, floats, transparencies and rousing mass meetings in courthouses and town halls. Glee clubs were organized to introduce campaign songs and to lead audiences and matchers in singing them. The songs were real factors in holding the interest of crowds, emphasizing issues, developing enthusiasm and satirizing opponents. With changes in the methods of campaigning, the campaign song declined as a popular expression.

Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940

Presidential campaign songs

*1928: Al Smith: "Sidewalks of New York"
*1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt: "Happy Days Are Here Again"
*1960: John F. Kennedy: "High Hopes"
*1964: Lyndon B. Johnson: "Hello Lyndon" (Jerry Herman), Barry Goldwater: "Go with Goldwater" (Tom McDonnell and Otis Clements)
*1968: Richard Nixon: "Nixon's the One" (Moose Charlap and Alvin Cooperman)
*1972: George McGovern: "Bridge over Troubled Water" (Paul Simon)
*1976: Jimmy Carter: "Ode to The Georgia Farmer" (K.E. and Julia Marsh), Gerald Ford: "I'm Feeling Good about America" (Robert K. Gardner)
*1980: Ronald Reagan "California Here We Come"
*1984: Ronald Reagan "Born in the U.S.A." (Bruce Springsteen, who later asked Reagan to stop using the song) [http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13237483&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=484045&rfi=6] , Walter Mondale "Gonna Fly Now"
*1988: George H. W. Bush: "This Land Is Your Land" (Woody Guthrie), Michael Dukakis: "America" (Neil Diamond)
*1992: Bill Clinton: Don't Stop (Fleetwood Mac), Ross Perot: Crazy (Patsy Cline)
*1996: Bob Dole: "Dole Man" (Sam and Dave)
*2000: George W. Bush: "I Won't Back Down" (Tom Petty)(Who threatened to sue Bush if he did not stop using the song. Petty then performed the song at Al Gore's home minutes after he conceded the election.), "We the People" (Billy Ray Cyrus), "Right Now" (Van Halen)
Al Gore: "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" (Bachman-Turner Overdrive),"Let the Day Begin" (The Call)
*2004: George W. Bush: "Only in America" (Brooks & Dunn), "Wave on Wave" by Pat Green
John Kerry: "No Surrender" (Bruce Springsteen) [http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/arnold_speech041029.html] , "Fortunate Son" by John Fogerty
*2008: John McCain: "Take A Chance On Me" by ABBA, "Our Country" by John Mellencamp (who asked McCain to stop using the song)
Barack Obama: "Better Way" by Ben Harper, "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder
:Primary candidates: Hillary Clinton: "You and I" (Celine Dion), Chris Dodd: "Get Ready" and "Reach Out I'll Be There" by The Temptations, John Edwards: "Our Country" by John Mellencamp, Rudy Giuliani: Take Us Out by Jerry Goldsmith (theme from "Rudy") and "Rudie Can't Fail" by The Clash, Mike Huckabee: "More Than A Feeling" by Boston (Tom Scholz of Boston asked Huckabee to stop using the song)

External links

* [http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_national/campaign_songs/ 'Music Minefield'- a humorous AP interactive with animations. Examines certain candidates Campaign Songs intended and unintended meanings.]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/republicancampai60burl The Republican campaign songster, for 1860 by William Henry Burleigh. Digitized from the collection of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library.]
* [http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/581okxhu.asp Sing a Song of Howard Dean]
* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4366491 Campaign Jukebox, 2004 model]
* [http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/23/DDGMN7QRLE1.DTL Gone are the days of 'Happy Days Are Here Again.']
* [http://www.presidentelect.org/art_schimler_singing.html Singing to the Oval Office]
* [http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/11/latimes.campaign.songs Songs in the Key of Presidency]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Campaign song — Unter einem Wahlkampfschlager versteht man ein Lied, welches von Sympathisanten einer Partei oder Parteigängern eines Kandidaten als Werbe und Erkennungslied unter die Leute gebracht wird. Oft bedient sich ein Wahlkampfschlager einer einfachen,… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Song Wan — (宋万), nicknamed Giant in the clouds (云里金刚), is a character in the epic Chinese novel, Water Margin .Song Wan, along with Wang Lun and Du Qian were the pioneers of the stronghold on Liangshan. Once, Lin Chong fled to Chai Jin s residence after… …   Wikipedia

  • Song Jiaoren — This is a Chinese name; the family name is Song. Song Jiaoren President of Kuomintang In office 1912 1913 Preceded by …   Wikipedia

  • Song Jiang — (宋江) was the leader of a bandit group in the 12th century, during the Song Dynasty. His group was active in the present day provinces of Shandong and Henan, before surrendering to government troops. He features as one of the heroes of the classic …   Wikipedia

  • Song Dynasty — This article is about the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties. For the Southern Dynasty, see Liu Song Dynasty. Song 宋 ← …   Wikipedia

  • Song of Albion — The Song of Albion is a series of books by Stephen Lawhead consisting of The Paradise War , The Silver Hand and The Endless Knot . The series combines Christian religious themes with that of Celtic folklore, and tells the tale of a pair of men… …   Wikipedia

  • Song of Blades and Heroes — articleissues primarysources=October 2007 importance=October 2007 Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH) is a fantasy miniatures game, written by Andrea Sfiligoi and published by Ganesha Games and edited by John Mcbride in 2007 in both electronic (PDF)… …   Wikipedia

  • Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket — Infobox Military Conflict conflict=Campaign of the North China Plain Pocket partof=Chinese Civil War place=Southern North China Plain, China date=June 22, 1946 August 31, 1946 result=Communist victory combatant1= combatant2= commander1= Cheng… …   Wikipedia

  • song —    Until the late 19th century, it was generally agreed within the musical establishment that England, alone amongst the countries which comprise the British Isles, possessed no traditional folk song or music. The campaign to refute this… …   A Dictionary of English folklore

  • Campaign at the Eastern Foothills of Funiu Mountain — Infobox Military Conflict conflict=Campaign at the Eastern Foothills of Funiu Mountain partof=Chinese Civil War place=Western Henan, China date=October 29, 1947 November 25, 1947 result=Communist victory combatant1= combatant2= commander1=… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”