The Bernie Project-- At iTunes And Amazon Monday

There's something horrible about Chris Christie being a Bruce Springsteen fan, even if the admiration is strictly a one-way street. And, I admit, there was something creepy about a reactionary Wall Street creation like Paul Ryan leaking his iTunes playlist to prove he had some connection to a zeitgeist normal humans could relate to. Who could imagine that the guy who wants to gut Social Security and see grandma and grandpa die without medical care also likes to rock out to Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, the Dead, Green Day, Twisted Sister, AC/DC and Led Zeppelin? Rage's Tom Morello, for his part, made it clear that Ryan is the "embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades." And Twisted Sister threatened to sue Ryan if he doesn't stop using their music at his bund-like rallies. Conservatives and popular music -- beyond Pat Boone-- seem like strange bedfellows.

It's almost impossible to reconcile Rage Against the Machine with Ryan's ideology, however. The band's politics are as inseparable from its music as Woody Guthrie's leftism was from his own songs. Responding to the band's criticism of George W. Bush, Ann Coulter sneered, "They're losers, their fans are losers, and there's a lot of violence coming from the left wing." (Ann Coulter, call your office.) Rage guitarist Tom Morello has also been a frequent presence at Occupy Wall Street events. It's tough to imagine what must go through Ryan's head as he listens to songs about the evils of the capitalism system.

...Ryan, of course, is not the first right-of-center politician to proclaim his love for bands that staunchly disagree with him. The most famous incidence is probably Ronald Reagan's tin-eared adoption of Bruce Springsteen's stinging "Born in the USA" as a campaign song. In 2007, sometimes-musician Mike Huckabee named outspoken liberal acts John Mellencamp and Creedence Clearwater Revival as members of his musical pantheon. But that's not as bad as British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was "forbidden" from liking the Smiths by Morrissey and Johnny Marr, in an exceptionally rare moment of unity from the former bandmates.

Perhaps this is healthy. After all, rock 'n' roll is about rebellion against social norms. Even politicians need a chance to cut loose sometimes, and no one ought to begrudge them that small act of getting out of line. Listening to left-wing bands may simply be an irresistible, forbidden fruit for people like Ryan.

When Bill Clinton asked me to get Lou Reed to perform at a White House state dinner in honor of Velvet Underground fanatic (and Czech president) Vaclav Havel, it didn't seem odd at all... and a good time was had by all. And Ryan's incoherent, reflexive head banging for "grunge" is nothing like the paean Alan Grayson wrote to Joni Mitchell, every single one of whose songs he seems to have reflected on at great length (and depth). Joni's songs, he wrote, are "Dense. Poetic. Brimming with deep and yet casual insights into the way people are. And that’s putting aside the gorgeous musical compositions, and Joni’s surreal voice. What is the meaning of life? I’m not sure, but I sense that it’s somewhere in there, suffusing the songs of Joni Mitchell."

One of the most refreshing campaigns of the 2014 cycle was Rick Weiland's music-fueled run for Senate in South Dakota and the songs he and his family-based band recorded were front and center from start to finish. Listen to this. Everything about it sounds perfectly authentic to me to me. Can you imagine Paul Ryan getting up on a stage and singing a version of Bulls on Parade, Ghost of Tom Joad or even Renegades of Funk?



In 1987, when Bernie Sanders was 46 and mayor of Burlington he was excited by the nexus between popular culture and social change. "Music and how music relates to social life is something that interests me," he told a radio audience. He spent two nights at the White Crow Studio-- later made famous as the early home of Phish-- recording "We Shall Overcome," "This Land Is Your Land," "Banks Are Made of Marble," "Oh Freedom" and "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" Monday, Todd Lockwood, the former owner of the studio whose idea the sessions were, is releasing a 5-song EP-- both electronically and on CD-- called We Shall Overcome featuring the Vermont Senator and probable presidential candidate.

"I love music very much, but to be honest I can't carry a tune," the independent senator wrote in an email forwarded from his Burlington office. "I have to tell you that working with all of those Vermont musicians was a great experience."

"We Shall Overcome" contains five songs featuring many performers still active on the Vermont music scene, including Jon Gailmor, Rick Norcross of Rick & the Ramblers and Danny Coane of The Starline Rhythm Boys. Rather than sing, Sanders delivers impassioned speeches with his deep New York accent intertwined with updated versions of classic folk songs such as Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

Many of his soliloquys would work just fine as stump speeches for his potential presidential push in 2016, as the topics he addressed then are similar to those he emphasizes now. On Pete Seeger's "Oh Freedom," Sanders boldly espouses "freedom, dignity, the willingness to stand up against the strong and the powerful." On Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Sanders angrily indicts the evolution of warfare to nerve gas and laser beams. The album might come off a little awkward at times, but it shows the consistency of Sanders' positions.

Stewart Ledbetter of WPTZ explains that "Sanders couldn't sing but he could write and talk so Lockwood got 30 of Vermont's best musicians to play and sing over Sanders' introductions. In the year that followed, White Crow sold several hundred  copies of the "Bernie Project" on cassette tape-- the medium of the day. And then it was mostly forgotten."

Lockwood took the masters to Portland, Maine to get them digitally remastered by Bob Ludwig (the gold standard for the music industry, who has mastered records for Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, The Who, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Nirvana, Coldplay, Dire Straits, Daft Punk... you name it. Lockwood, who's doing this on his own without getting a buy in from Sanders, thinks it could help his presidential campaign.

"My sense of it is that this can't hurt anything. This is grassroots stuff you can't buy," Lockwood said. "There's no other person who'll run for president that'll have something like this."

Take that, Hillary.

And Paul Ryan.

This is the Pete Seeger song Bernie covered that I barely remembered from my childhood-- "The Banks Are Made of Marble"

I've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore.
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.
I saw the weary farmer,
Plowing sod and loam;
I heard the auction hammer
A knocking down his home.
[Chorus:]
But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the farmer sweated for.
I saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore.
I heard the bosses saying,
Got no work for you no more.
But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the seaman sweated for.
I saw the weary miner,
Scrubbing coal dust from his back,
I heard his children cryin',
Got no coal to heat the shack.
But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the miner sweated for.
I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land;
I prayed we'd get together,
And together make a stand.
[Final Chorus:]
Then we'd own those banks of marble,
With a guard at every door;
And we'd share those vaults of silver,
That we have sweated for.

You can buy the new digitally remastered Bernie Sanders music here at our DWT books and music shop starting Monday.