Oooh... Barracuda!

Last night, after watching John McCain's snore-fest of a speech, I was rather surprised by the fact that CNN didn't immediately leap into post-speech analysis, but instead chose to simply display the arena floor celebrations without commentary. I was more surprised to hear Heart's 1970s hit "Barracuda" blaring throughout the stadium. I turned to my husband and said "I'm surprised that Heart would authorize the use of their music by the Republicans." As it turns out, they didn't, and Heart has asked the Republican party to stop using their music as part of their campaign - apparently a statement that they had made before last night's speeches.

It must be rough to be a Republican, with so little popular music available for campaign spots. This isn't the first such incident either, as other artists including John Mellencamp and even ABBA have asked that their music not be used for Republican partisan purposes. I guess it's back to "Raisin' McCain" (which my husband also noted sounds eerily like "Raising Cain").

I have to say that I have a hard time imagining such a flap erupting up here in Canada - I don't think that Tina Turner cares which Canadian politician is currently using "Simply the Best". I do, however, keep expecting to hear the theme music from "Mr. Roger's Neighbourhood" cropping up in the most recent Conservative ad spots that try to cast Stephen Harper as everyone's favorite old sweater-clad uncle. The fact that his body language and facial expressions suggest that he'd devour the head of any child that sat in his lap is perhaps the only major downside of that campaign image...

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