Ronald Reagan in music
In the 1980s, songs critiquing Reagan became more widespread and numerous once he ascended to national office and involved himself in the renewal of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, social conservatism, right-wing evangelicalism, and his economic policies in relation to low-income people.
As a social conservative, he and his administration were sometimes at odds with the lifestyles and politics of popular musicians, and Reagan's time as president was marked by various miscommunications involving the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, and others.
[1] Waves of African-Americans moving from the Southern United States to urban centers in the North, Midwest, and West during and after World War II helped to electrify the blues and hastened the evolution of rock and roll.
Simultaneously the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War fueled folk singers like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs to write and record numerous topical songs that reached a large fanbase of primarily young people.
[8] Tom Lehrer made a similar comparison in his song "George Murphy", which opens: Hollywood's often tried to mix Show-business with politics, From Helen Gahagan To Ronald Reagan.
"[12][13] In 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Reagan in their science fiction-inspired song "It Came Out of the Sky" in which a flying saucer landing in the U.S. Midwest spirals into a commercial and political fiasco.
[14] In his lyrics, CCR frontman John Fogerty imagines how different sectors of the establishment would respond, with Hollywood turning the event into an epic film, The Vatican declaring it as Christ's return, then-Vice President Spiro Agnew proposing a tariff on all things Martian, and Governor Reagan suspecting a communist conspiracy.
In the song vocalist Paul Kantner sings, "the dogs of a grade-B movie star governor's war"[16] in reference to the previous year's actions taken against students at the University of California, Berkeley who were creating a People's Park as part of the political counterculture of the 1960s.
[17][18][19] Governor Reagan's Chief of Staff, Edwin Meese, had ordered the Alameda County sheriff to fire upon the crowds with buckshot, resulting in the death of one student and the hospitalization of 128 others.
In 1981, "(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" by British synth-poppers Heaven 17 slammed UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher along with Reagan, denouncing the leaders' policies as tending toward racism and fascism.
[42] Beuys' sun-not-Reagan protest song was backed by members of Neue Deutsche Welle groups BAP and Ina Deter and was added to the collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
[56] In 1985 former Police frontman Sting released "Russians", with lyrics leveled at Reagan, the Soviets, and both countries' pro-nuclear rhetoric, all set to Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite.
[58] Milwaukee folk-rockers The Violent Femmes imagined the president as "Old Mother Reagan", a dangerously senile grandmother who tries in vain to enter heaven in one of the group's most fiercely political songs.
[63] U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky" from The Joshua Tree was inspired after lead vocalist Bono visited El Salvador during the Salvadoran Civil War and witnessed how the conflict between rebels and the US-backed government affected local civilians.
[69] The widespread appearance of Reagan as a vilified icon in punk music particularly can be linked to the do-it-yourself model of bands releasing their own records and not being subject to the censorship of major labels, commercial radio or television.
[76] Actress Jodie Foster had been the target of an obsession that Reagan assailant John Hinckley Jr. had developed since seeing her portray a preteen sex worker in the film Taxi Driver.
"[80] JFA's label-mates, the Sun City Girls, released an entire Reagan-themed album in 1987 whose title, Horse Cock Phepner, was an alleged nickname for Ronald Reagan.
[82]Other notable punk acts that sang about Reagan included The Ramones, The Clash, The Damned, The Exploited, NOFX, Suicidal Tendencies,[84] Wasted Youth, T.S.O.L., Government Issue,[85] Dayglo Abortions, D.O.A.,[84] The Fartz, The Minutemen, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles,[75] MDC, Rosemary's Babies, Spermbirds,[86] and The Crucifucks.
In wanting his music to outlast the administration, Washington, DC musician Ian MacKaye, who was in the bands Minor Threat, Embrace, Pailhead, and Fugazi during the Reagan years, has said, "I remember clearly resisting the urge to put the word 'Reagan' in any of the songs".
[106] Fela Kuti featured demonic caricatures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and other world leaders on the cover of his 1989 album Beasts of No Nation and mentioned them in the lyrics.
[112][113] Also in 1984, Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a video for their anti-war song "Two Tribes" featuring actors playing Ronald Reagan and then-Russian leader Konstantin Chernenko who were fighting as though they were professional wrestlers.
In his speech, Reagan purports that Social Security is a socialist attempt to supplant private savings, and eventually concludes that, "Pretty soon your son won't decide when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living.
[152] A week after Will's writing appeared in a column, Reagan praised Springsteen in a stump speech given in Hammonton, New Jersey on September 19, 1984,[153] saying: "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts.
[151] In 1983 Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt cancelled The Beach Boys annual Independence Day performance in Washington, DC, opting instead for crooner Wayne Newton and a U.S. Army band.
The Beach Boys had played a free concert on the National Mall every July 4 since 1980 until Watt declared that rock music attracted "the wrong element" and that the administration was "not going to encourage drug abuse and alcoholism as was done in past years.
Meant to celebrate both leaders' Irish heritage, the incident became contentious in Canada with critics calling it a "cloying performance" that symbolized the Mulroney government's excessive closeness to the Reagan administration.
[166] Billy Joel was one of the first songwriters to mention Reagan post-presidentially amidst his litany of American cultural and political events in his high-profile 1989 single, "We Didn't Start the Fire.
[citation needed] In 2010 television actor Fred Armisen and ex-Scream/Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl paid tribute to their own punk rock roots in the Saturday Night Live sketch, "Crisis of Conformity", a send-up of an '80s hardcore band reuniting to play a wedding 25 years past their heyday.
[173] Chicago indie label Drag City later released a Crisis of Conformity single featuring the song "Fist Fight in the Parking Lot" whose opening lines "When Ronald Reagan comes around / He brings the fascists to your town" and subsequent mention of Alexander Haig are a sendup of similar lyrics by the Dead Kennedys and other 80s hardcore acts.
Bright Eyes founder Conor Oberst's 2016 song "A Little Uncanny" comments on Reaganomics and alleges to explore a supposed irony that Reagan's charisma distracted from the 'darker' side of his policies.
