Arranging A Victory Means Finding The Right Score

Stevie Wonder Will Perform Tonight, But Campaign's Theme Song Yet To Be Unveiled

by Alexis Simendinger, Brian Friel, and Gregg Sangillo

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2008


OK, OK. So The Boss isn't going to rock Barack Obama's Invesco Field rally today, at least not in person. Will.i.am will perform his Obama speech-to-music hit "Yes We Can" with a local band. And Stevie Wonder will entertain, which was exactly what some delegates predicted this week, at least the ones who were steeped in Obama's musical tastes along the campaign trail. Wonder has been among Team Obama's favorites: You got my future in your hands/Here I am baby/Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours.

If a presidential nominee wants to tie a memory prompt around his convention messages, forget the speeches and the bumper stickers. Music can do the trick. Hear a few bars of "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)" by Fleetwood Mac, and Bill Clinton of days gone by flits through the gray cells.

Most of Obama's young fans wouldn't have a clue today if they heard Frank Sinatra singing "High Hopes," but in 1960, John F. Kennedy's campaign latched onto that song as something cool and energetic, just the right antidote, they thought, to opponent Richard Nixon.

In 2004, President Bush's campaign belted out "Only in America" by The Call, while challenger John Kerry leaned into the working-class populism recognized by Baby Boomers everywhere with Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender." (Springsteen-in-Denver was the running rumor this week, until his manager shot it down in the press.)

One middle-aged African-American woman attending the convention frowned deeply at the suggestion that Springsteen would serve up the Obama "theme song" on his big night. During a chat with Convention Daily about the sort of musical iconography the nominee will borrow, she said with finality in her voice, "It will be Stevie Wonder." Not Springsteen? "If it's Springsteen," she said, shaking her head, "then it's not music he listens to."

Wait a minute. Obama told Blender magazine that Springsteen's "I'm on Fire" was his No. 3 favorite song. Springsteen, who was never a reliable voter until relatively recently, made his first candidate endorsement with Kerry (although he didn't perform at the Boston convention). The singer even rebuked Ronald Reagan in 1984 for trying to co-opt his "Born in the U.S.A." anthem. (Reagan's team somehow missed the song's anti-Vietnam message.)

Old-school Republicans aren't the only ones who neglect to give the lyrics a close look before borrowing a tune. On Monday, the Pepsi Center filled to strains of Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" which is about the second coming of Christ: I am the chosen/I'm the One. Perhaps not the essential meaning that "Celebrity Obama" -- as John McCain tries to cast his opponent--is looking for.

Anita Dunn, a senior Obama campaign adviser, said that convention planners turned to music in the Pepsi Center to break up the time between speakers and pump in some additional energy. The Invesco musical program will have enough variety--country, rock, local bands--to appeal to most ages and tastes. Because Obama's 76,000 fans have to arrive so early for security purposes, the musical acts will keep them entertained, Dunn told Convention Daily. "We don't think we're going to need a lot of help with energy," she said, "because we think people will be very excited."

Over the years, plenty of hipness-deficient politicians have run afoul of artists' copyrights and irate performers, who guard their brands and prefer to remove their music from the political theater. Obama has had the opposite problem, practically being showered with musical endorsements, even as he guards his own brand.

Obama has been reluctant to peg himself to the '60s counterculture, for instance. The Grateful Dead, a traditionally nonpolitical band, endorsed him, as did Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. (The band inflated a giant pig bearing Obama's name, and released it skyward at a concert this year.) Even Bob Dylan, not known for swooning for politicians, offered an implicit endorsement with some kind words.

Inspired by Obama, plenty of lesser-known musicians and everyday fans have created music for their favorite change agent, a phenomenon born of the senator's significant under-30 technology-savvy following. On the convention floor on Tuesday, Sam Collier, an R&B singer-songwriter from Atlanta, passed out CDs of his own version of an Obama theme song titled "Change." Collier called Obama "the closest thing to a politician that is speaking to the soul."

Asked this week about what Obama's Denver theme song should be, convention-goers had many suggestions. A South Dakota delegate who is a country fan pondered the right genre. "I think he's contemporary," she said. "He's not really rhythm and blues. He's kind of in between. Maybe one of those Hawaiian fire songs," a reference to the state where Obama was raised.

Jaysa Kuntz, a 17-year-old high school student from Colorado, suggested "All Star" by Smash Mouth, as she sat through a convention event with her U.S. government class. She hummed the lyrics: Hey now/You're an all-star/Get your game On/Go play.

Diane Peterson, 61, a smiling Democratic Party volunteer, said she likes "Fired Up and Ready to Go" as a theme song. It's a fan's creation, sent to her via YouTube by other Obama enthusiasts. She liked it so much, she put it on her blog and plays it in her Connecticut home. "It has a beat and it gets you moving!" she enthused.

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