Grooving out to one-writ wonders
Some of the parties’ campaign theme songs seem to hit wrong note
There are only two big-budget sounds on the election trail and neither appears to be doing much for Canadian ears.
Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, going all-in on the slogan “It’s Time For You To Get Ahead,” bankrolled a customcrafted song with words that are crazy-glued on-message. But the sound doesn’t get ahead, not at all. It goes back all the way to the commercially rocking 1980s. “Get Ahead” — penned by Jim Vallance, the 67-year-old cowriter behind much of the Bryan Adams songbook — is a noteperfect political anthem, if the notes are intended to tantalize the inner mullets of whitehaired suburban dads.
But for non-boomers? Have a glance at the withering responses accumulating on the music website SoundCloud — “Embarrassingly generic.” “Out of touch.” “I have the sudden urge to eat white bread with cheese whiz and drive a buck-abeer. Ewww.”
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals chose something far more current, tapping the latest album of Toronto’s plaintive, ear-pleasing Strumbellas for the hope-infused “One Hand Up.”
On its own the song is lovely, opening with an air of pensive melancholy, rounding into choruses that uplift. But appended to the 2019 version of Team Trudeau, the pensively melancholic parts work better than the uplift.
But it all went pear-shaped a day after when the French version, recorded at the bilingual behest of the Liberals, was deemed incomprehensible. Those lines about holding one hand up for tomorrow, one hand up to the stars? Many heard them as “Remove One Hand.”
Much hand-wringing ensued, with the Liberals promising a re-recording is in the works. The Strumbellas offered a statement acknowledging that though they had taken the time and trouble to “hire a bilingual Québecoise songwriter known for her French adaptations of English songs,” it obviously didn’t end well.
“Any discrepancies or mispronunciations were not intended to offend French-speaking communities or distract from the important issues facing Canadian voters in the upcoming election,” the Strumbellas said. “We hope people will use their voice and vote in October.” It makes you wonder, why even bother with a campaign anthem in 2019? Is it even worth trying anymore?
It is, actually. Look no further than Donald Trump’s improbable journey to the White House.
A song didn’t make or break how the stars aligned to open the pathway for the Republican candidate. But in choosing the furious/infuriating “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by ’80s poodle rockers Twisted Sister, Team Trump aligned perfectly with Trump’s raging outsider persona.
Trump was selling raw anger. And he did it with precisely the right soundtrack to help cement the allegiance of a disaffected base. In typical Trump fashion, it cost him almost nothing — an angry earworm straight off the shelf and already familiar to the target audience.
On the lower-budget end of this election’s campaign songbook, you can’t help but admire how the NDP is putting a sound in its step. Jagmeet Singh’s go-to song for amping up his crowds in 2019 is Trinidadian artist Bunji Garlin’s “Differentology (Ready For The Road)” — the same fun, propulsive track that accompanied his rise to become party leader. It ain’t broke, apparently, so he didn’t try to fix it.
Singh’s choice breaks the unwritten rule that Canadian pols must march strictly to Canadian music. Instead, it’s an invitation for anyone and everyone to climb aboard, replete with a mantra that hammers the word “ready” a full 30 times. “We ready, we ready, yeah we ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready.” Elizabeth May’s Greens, meanwhile, are now halfway through a campaign that has not yet settled on a campaign song — a fact that has more than a little to do with the party’s severely limited resources.
As one Green campaign insider told the Star, “We’re working on a campaign song, but there’s no guarantee we’ll have it in time for the election because we’re doing a million other things at the same time. We would of course love to get it out in time, but it might just not be possible.”
But the absence of a Green soundtrack begs the question, what song might best fit the bill of the party platform built around action on climate change? Anyone know a song that both uplifts and yet also communicates urgency without frightening the children — or Alberta? That’s a pretty narrow needle for any one song to thread. Maybe the old Chamber Brothers chestnut, “Time Has Come Today”? (It has correct amount of both urgency and cowbell, IMHO.) Or how about Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” Too mellow, or too boomer, to work for the climate-savvy millennials the Greens are aiming for?
Chicago’s eco-minded punk band Rise Against have a cluster of aggressive 21st-century tracks that might awaken younger Green voters. “Ready To Fall” and “Help Is On The Way” come to mind. But May, a folkie at heart, clearly is more attuned to hearing Rise Again (Stan Rogers’ “Mary Ellen Carter”) than Rise Against.
That’s not just May’s dilemma, the sheer tunelessness of this election.
Splayed out in sensibilities by generation and geography, polarized between the powers that be and the powers that soon might be, deflated as the mud flies, uncertain that whoever prevails may not be equipped to deal with what’s to come — this election feels as out of tune as any I can remember.
Maybe we’re better off without a soundtrack this time around.