“Right now our country’s gloomy
Fear is in the air
But when Joe’s President
Hope is everywhere
Troubles fly away
And life will easy flow
Joe will keep us safe
That’s all we need to know….”
—Cher, singing a really bad parody of “Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe” a Harold Arlen-Yip Harburg song from the 1943 all-black film musical “Cabin in the Sky,” at the 2020 “I Will Vote” Concert last night.
The original lyrics were,
“It seems like happiness is just a thing called Joe
He’s got a smile that makes the lilacs want to grow,
He’s got a way that makes the angels heave a sigh
When they see little Joe passing by…”
It’s not fair to hold campaign songs that put new lyrics to popular tunes to too high a standard. They are all pretty dreadful, and since rap and hip-hop took over popular music, the once-common practice has almost become extinct.
My all time favorite, I think, was when a Boston city councilman named John McDonough was running for some position or other, and the radio was infested with his ads featuring a chorus arranged to sound like the singers in “Jesus Christ Superstar” as they sang, to the tune of the number “Superstar,
“John McDonough! John McDonough! Who are you, what have you done for Boston?”
It didn’t scan, it didn’t rhyme, and the audacity of a candidate substituting his own name for “Jesus Christ” did not go over well among the Catholics in Bean Town. (He lost.)
Cher’s lyrics aren’t quite as bad, but they are dishonest and ominous:
- Certainly no one alive can be “happy” about Joe Biden being the Democratic candidate, and the prospect of having a declining dementia case in his late 70s as President, attempting to hang on for four years is making nobody smile, except perhaps Kamala Harris.
- “Hope” for what? I guess this is a veiled allusion to Obama, but unless one is hoping for more taxes and further restrictions on individual rights and liberties, this is fantasy. The fantasy is based, of course, on Big Lie #5, which is that everything is terrible, and it’s all because of the evil Orange Man.
- If “fear is in the air,” it’s only because Joe’s party and the news media in its pocket has been spreading fear for four years. It was Biden who warned of a “dark winter.” The President, by contrast, has been relentlessly positive and upbeat.
- How much of a fool does one have to be to think that “life will be easy flow” because of who is President? This is Big Government, Big Brother, the Leader as Messiah language. America has never misled its citizens into expecting life to be “easy.” Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t supposed to be easy.
- The emphasis on “keeping us safe” is genuinely frightening, but it does accurately sum up the sheep-like mentality of many American progressives, who are apparently willing to give up freedom and their previously unalienable rights for the illusion of safety.
It’s a direct appeal to totalitarianism.
___________________________
Pointer: Althouse
Ethics Alarms 
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
I understood that reference!
Good 😉 I admit that in addition to having to look up and copy the exact text, I also wanted to verify that my recall/understanding wasn’t faulty, and the post didn’t appear to be just an odd non-sequitur. Wikipedia nicely backed me up on that “… In Carroll’s parody, the crocodile’s corresponding “virtues” are deception and predation…“
I love these “Rock the Vote” and “Get out the Vote” efforts that should really be “Be Sure to Remember to Vote and Vote Democratic, You Young People (even though you can’t do it on your phone).” Blatant pandering.
By the way, I’d put “I Got You Babe” on my list of favorite ‘sixties pop songs. One of the sweetest love duets ever. Cher has a rich voice but Sonny was clearly the brains of the outfit. Although Cher did have her moments.
Yeah, Trevor Noah’s on one of thos ads in endless Comedy Central commercial breaks. I feel the same way you do…there wouldn’t be any ads if Hollywood weren’t desperately cheer-leading for Biden. Celebrity voting ads always means, “Vote for the Democrats”.
It has long seemed to me that the “get out the vote” being mostly a democrat effort is an admission that “A good portion of our supporters are too stupid, uninformed, lazy and/or coked-up to rouse themselves and go to the polls…and they won’t let us use cattle prods.”. The push for expanded mail-in ballots just simplifies the job, with the opportunity to add a nice dollop of extra fraud.
“seemed”
Fixed!
What they’re really hoping for is voting by cell phone. “Hey! There’s an app for that! Just go to voteonmyphone.gov and download the app. Today. It’s free!” It’s only a few years away. There are two or more generations out there in the “If I can’t do it on my phone, it’s not worth doing” demographic.
Cher having having had her moments of fame in the 60s and 70s should gracefully fade away and enjoy the residuals on her songs and tv show if reruns are being shown somewhere. Btw, Sonny was a Republican and had a decent political career before he came to an untimely end.
Don’t forget her acting career in the 80’s and 90’s. She was excellent: “Jimmy Dean,” “Moonlight,” “Silkwood.”
I really liked Mask. I don’t know that she was great in it. I just remember seeing it a lot in those early cable TV days.
-Jut
Cher knew how to be natural on film, the secret of good movie acting. As Spencer Tracy said to a young man who told him that he was an actor, “Really? Well don’t let then catch you at it.”
She had a natural gift for creating a persona. Her interviews with Carson were hilarious (and I even think she put Letterman in his place as well). I wish she’d keep her politics to herself.
Her reasoning is less coherent than 50 Cent’s.
Is anyone else seeing a change in fonts on the blog?
Yes. I approve. Much easier on the eyes.
jvb
Sadly the font is smaller for me, making me have to embrace my age and use my readers.
Just enlarge it on your computator, Q. At least to 125%.
Cheers.
150% is even better.
I have no idea why this is, but I’ll see if I can fix it.
temporarily: “Ctrl + ” Mrs. Q.
Nothing wrong with embracing your age — just make it YOUR age, accepting only the limitations you agree to. (including final prepositions, for instance)
Yes, definitely.