Pumphouse

All the President's tunes - on his iPod
April 13, 2005

Los Angeles: As he ponders the future of the free world, the fate of social security or the state of his Texas ranch, President George Bush can turn to one source for solace: his iPod.
A birthday present from his daughters last year, the Bush iPod contains just 250 songs, from the knockabout comedy of Joni Mitchell's (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care to the straight ahead country blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan's The House Is Rockin'.
Mr Bush, an avid cyclist, takes his trusty music player whenever he can. On Saturday he took the opportunity of a 30-kilometre bike ride with his indispensable iPod to wind down after the Pope's funeral in Rome and before hosting the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
Although Mr Bush does not do anything so vulgar as download the songs himself - that duty is performed by an aide - the selection of music has analysts scrambling to deconstruct the contents of the presidential iPod.
What, for example, to make of the inclusion of The Knack's chirpy yet sleazy My Sharona, a staple of American college life for the past 20 years? But that is about as risky as it gets.
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As for an analysis of Mr Bush's playlist, Joe Levy of Rolling Stone magazine said: "One thing that's interesting is that the President likes artists who don't like him."
Mark McKinnon, Mr Bush's chief media strategist last year, cycling buddy and fellow iPod enthusiast, defended the presidential playlist. "If any president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians it would be a pretty slim collection," he said.
His selection, Levy said, "tells you that the President knows a thing or two about country music and is serious about his love of country music".
"This is basically boomer rock'n'roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving ... It's feelgood music. The Sex Pistols it's not."
Mr McKinnon said that sometimes a playlist was just a playlist, nothing more. "It's music to get over the next hill."

MUSIC TO HIS EARS
John Fogerty Centerfield
Van Morrison New Biography; Brown Eyed Girl
Joni Mitchell (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings Swinging From the Chains of Love
The Knack My Sharona
The Guardian, The New York Times

WHAT SHOULD GEORGE DUBBYA HAVE ON THE IPOD?