My Top Ten Vote Trump Out Songs

Flashback 4 years to early November 2016, and here's the post I offered in response to Donald Trump being elected President of the USA.

It seems impossible, after everything that has happened in the past 4 years, that Trump will be re-elected next Tuesday. But it seemed impossible that he'd be elected in the first place. And it seems impossible that he hasn't been impeached and thrown in jail a long time ago. It seems impossible than anyone would still vote for him.

But we live in impossible times.

Here are ten songs I hope will make a difference.

We do what we can...

10. Franz Ferdinand - Demagogue

He's a demagogue
Check out his rise
He's a demagogue
He's fatally famous
He's a demagogue
He plays with my fears
A demagogue
My shadow side dreaming
The demagogue
It feels so good to be dumb

From the wall straight to la cuenta
Those pussy grabbing fingers
Won't let go of me now
Demagogue
The demagogue

9. Todd Rundgren & Donald Fagen - Tin Foil Hat

He's coming down the escalator
With a girl from east of here
He wants to make the country greater
We've got nothing left to fear

Because the man in the tin foil hat
Is sitting on the throne tonight
It kinda feels like a coup d'etat
But it's gonna be great, tremendous, amazing and all that

'Cause the man in the tin foil hat
Is tweeting like a teenage girl
He puts the Pluto in plutocrat
But it's gonna be a huge huge huge new world
He hasn't got the time for losers
Unless they do as he commands
He's writing checks to his accusers
With those tiny little hands

'Cause the man in the tin foil hat
Is gonna drain the swamp tonight
And fill it up with alternative facts
And it's gonna be great, tremendous, amazing and all that

8.  Run DMC - Remove 45

What we need to do... we need to arrest the president!

7. Billy Bragg - The Times They Are A' Changin' Back

Come Mexicans, Muslims, LGBT and Jews

Keep your eyes wide for what’s on the news

For President Trump is express his views

And I that the mob he’s inside in

We’ll soon break your windows

Burn down your schools

For the times they are a changin' back

6. Bruce Springsteen & Joe Grushecky

Don't tell me a lie

And sell it as a fact

I've been down that road before

And I ain't goin' back

And don't you brag to me

That you never read a book

I never put my faith

In a con man and his crooks

5. John Grant - Smug Cunt

Now you're just a smug cunt

Who doesn't even do his own stunts

They just let you in 'cos you won't shut up

Protein's flying off the shelves

Panties ain't gonna wet themselves

They just let you play 'cos you won't shut up

Here's to acting like a little boy

Masturbating with expensive toys

They just let you play 'cos you won't shut up

4. Will Hoge - Gilded Walls

Oh and I don't believe in the devil
But you might make me go and change my mind
You can see this whole damn world get leveled and not even lose track of time
Inside your gilded walls that shine

Well another group of kids in high schools dead
But you're still at your golf course teeing off at nine
People marching in the streets trying to find a little peace
You sit around spouting awful shit online

Well you've always been the same
You ain't ever gonna change
But I know it's gonna all catch up with you in time
And there's a pot of gold from all the dreams you stole
Inside your gilded walls that shine

3. Public Enemy - State Of The Union

Whatever it takes, rid this dictator

POTUS my tail, Ass debater

Prime-time Preemo, rhyme-time crime

Like no other in this lifetime

White house killer, dead in lifelines

Vote this joke out, or die tryin'

Unprecedented, demented, many president'd

Nazi Gestapo dictator defended

It's not what you think, it's what you follow

Run for them jewels, drink from that bottle

Another four years gonna gut y'all hollow

Gutted out, dried up, broke and can't borrow

Mister, I am the law and you are not

In fact, I'm god, I got a lot

Mister these united breaks takeover come over

Orange hair, fear the comb-over

Here's another scare, keep them hands in the air

Better not breathe, you dare not dare

Don't say nothing, don't think nothing

Make America great again the middle just love it

When he wanna talk, walk y'all straight to them ovens

Human beings of color, yeah we be sufferin'

2. Karine Polwart - I Burn but I Am Not Consumed

On May 11th 1930, Mary Anne Macleod, from Tong on The Isle of Lewis, boarded the RMS Transylvania from Glasgow to New York City, in search of a better life. There, she fell in love with Frederick, whose father had come to America from Germany as a 16 year old barber. 

The couple raised five children. 

Mary Anne’s middle son would return years later to Scotland, home of his MacLeod ancestors, whose clan motto is: I burn but I am not consumed.  And here - in the name of progress and profit - and executive golf - he would pit himself against time and tide. In his wake, the shifting sands at Balmedie in Aberdeenshire would never be the same. 

That son of Mary Anne MacLeod is powerful. 

So too is The North Sea. 

The marbled, metamorphic rock of Lewis is two-thirds the age of Earth - amongst the very oldest found on our planet. It knows about power. It’s seen a lot. And so I wondered: what might that rock of Lewis have to say about the Inauguration - tomorrow in Washington DC - of the 45th President of the United States of America - Mary Anne’s middle son? This is what the rock told me. 

Oh son of Lewis, lonely boy, 

hewn from granite, salt and sky 

upon a foreign shore: 

the ocean is a mirror gleam 

in which you see yourself, 

and nothing more. 

  

Three billion years of gravity, 

of strata forged in fire and earth, 

the stone crib of your mother’s birth, 

in which your forebears lie. 

I am alive. I am a tomb. 

I burn, but I am not consumed. 

I burn, but I am not consumed. 

  

Fish may swim at your command 

across The Atlantic to the land 

of dreams and self belief and boundless chance. 

An exile tale. An immigrant dance. 

You’re captain of a frigate now, 

So set your compass, raise the mast, 

Blow up the sails, 

Erase the past, and future, if you must. 

Together we can stand 

and watch the peat-land turn to dust. 

  

This is your apprenticeship: 

The Gulf Stream doesn’t know your name, 

nor does the splendid, blazing sun 

that alters how the currents run. 

The North wind never heard you roar: 

You’re fired! You’re fired! 

My back might burn, the blaze run wild, 

but I am not consumed, my child. 

  

The Minch whips up a spindrift storm. 

The machair shifts. The machair moans. 

At Uig Bay and Luskentyre, 

the gale blows fast, the tide flows higher. 

The shore erodes and disappears. 

And, meantime, you are stoking fears 

and stacking hope into a pyre. 

You strike a match. 

  

Oh ma bairn, mo leanaibh         

Oh ma bairn, mo leanaibh 

  

Your mother was a wee girl once, 

who played upon my rocky shore. 

And you, you are broken boy, 

and you want more and more and more. 

You build a tower. You build a wall, 

You live in fear that they might fall. 

You who see nothing but your face 

in the sheen of The Hudson River. 

  

Oh ma bairn, mo leanaibh 

Oh ma bairn, mo leanaibh 

  

A balancing is yet to come, 

although by then you may be gone 

and leave a desert to your sons and daughters. 

Still, these waters, they will rise, 

the North Sea haar will cover your eyes, 

despite your appetite for lies. 

your disregard  for truth. 

  

Three billion years of gravity, 

of strata forged in fire and earth, 

the stone crib of your mother’s birth, 

in which your forebears lie. 

I am alive. I am a tomb. 

I burn, but I am not consumed. 

I burn, but I am not consumed. 

1. Chuck Prophet - Get Off The Stage

Me, I’m just one man

Up on the stage I make my stand

Yes, it’s true, I have a band

Up here behind me

While you, you’ve got your crew

And the Secret Service too

And your wife from the EU

But you’re no good at rhyming

So hey, get down off that stage

We’ve heard everything you’ve got to say

You’ve been calling all the shots

You’ve got us all tied up in knots

C’mon man, get off the stage

Now me, I spend half of my life

In an Econoline van

With my band and my wife

And when she steps up to the mic

I’ve seen grown men burst out crying

While you, you’ve got an ugly mouth

You got no heart at all,

Except for your Russian pal

You’re an obstruction in democracy’s bowel

And the patient is dying

So come down off that stage

Please get off the stage

Come on down and take a seat

We’ll put some John Prine on repeat

All we’re asking is get off the stage

If you were an automobile

You’d be out of gas

With four flat tires and a smog check

That’s never gonna pass

If you were a pair of socks

You’d be full of holes

You’re one bad hombre

So why don’t you just turn around

And go home

And maybe do something with that hair

Take a walk in the park

Visit a renaissance fair

You’re headed for prison, you know

But don’t be scared

The first time is the hardest

Just get down off that stage

We’ve heard everything you’ve got to say

Take a book down off the shelf

Try to love somebody else

Whatever you do, just get off the stage