When Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary, attendees of his election night party rocked out to set list that ranged from “Eye of the Tiger,” to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” to LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem,” to “We Like to Party!” by Vengaboys.
The DJ, one Pierre Brunache, sporting braces and an American flag tie, was DJing for the campaign for the first time, and had been given limited instructions: he was supposed to play Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America,” and “American Ride” by Toby Keith. Other than that, “they pretty much just left it up to my discretion,” Brunache explained, “and I just watched the crowd and kind of played some pumped up kind of songs.”
The result was a fantastic playlist that had supporters and media alike rocking out, and foreign reporters complaining, according to one Gingrich staffer. It also yielded articles from more than one publication that focused on the DJ, rather than the candidate’s big moment.
The music that campaigns play at events is far more than just background noise. A song can define a campaign’s message, it can pump up a crowd before an event, or keep a crowd in good spirits as they wait for a candidate who’s running 40 minutes late to his own victory party (cough cough, Newt).
But the music you play can also get you in trouble.
In 2000, when Hillary Clinton was running for Senate for the first time, Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” — a great song for a campaign in New York — was played at a rally. But someone left the CD on too long, and it rolled over to “Captain Jack,” whose lyrics include such gems as “Captain Jack will get you high tonight” and “You just sit at home and masturbate.”
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Clinton’s opponent at the time, attacked her for the lewd lyrics.
That same year, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush took the stage in New Hampshire to the sounds of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” which chronicles the difficult relationship between a father and a son. Memories of Bush’s father’s term as president, just eight years before, were fresh in voters’ minds, Jake Tapper reported at the time, and voters and the media read meaning into the lyrics of the song that Bush likely didn’t intend.
The media coverage of the song, “of course, got everyone’s attention in Austin, and probably between 24 and 48 hours later we had a list of 12 or 15 songs that we were allowed to play at events,” recalled Todd Beyer, who did advance for the campaign.
“You don’t want people to read into the music; you don’t want the music to be the story. All it is is part of the theatrics,” Beyer explained.
In the early stages of a campaign, the music isn’t necessarily something that anyone is thinking too carefully about.
“Literally, at some of the first rallies in ’99,” said David Hill, who did operations on both Bush campaigns, “some of the advance guys who were setting up the rallies would just ask the local staffers what CD’s they had in their cars. There was a Randy Travis CD that got is fair share of playing time as a result,” Hill said.
Such a casual approach, however, can cause a campaign to run into trouble. On the other hand, even with much planning and a set playlist, things don’t always go as planned.
“People can start showing up hours before, and I think a lot of times the advance teams on the ground don’t think to really pay much attention to what’s playing an hour, two, three hours before the event,” said Beyer. “So a lot of times the vendor will just throw on a CD… and it just goes.”
Once, Beyer recounted, in 2000 “after the event, the approved CD had cycled through and the governor was still out there shaking hands, and the vendor put on some other music. And I can’t remember what it was but I remember watching C-SPAN and hearing this loud, kind of goth type of music. And everyone’s phone lit up, and people were saying ‘what’s going on, what are they listening to, get that music off.'”
“I think a good campaign has a solid playlist of songs that have been vetted, approved, both legally and politically, and leaves it to the discretion of the team on the ground — the local advance team, to see what matches best that event,” suggested Jason Recher, former special assistant and trip director for President George W. Bush.
Of course, once you get the approved playlist handed down, the people on the ground are “pretty much stuck with it,” which means listening to the same songs over and over and over again. For the Bush campaign, that was Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America.”
“Oh my gosh — I was just thinking about that before I called you,” Beyer said. “I still hear that song in my head.”
Creating that kind of association, however, can be a good thing, said Joe Kildea, a Republican strategist who ran the war room for the Bush campaign in 2004 and directed rapid response for Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign in 2010, because it helps the candidate to create “a brand.”
But those associations can become so strong that other candidates can use it against you.
“I know a lot of Republicans cringed in ’08, when Brooks & Dunn’s ‘Only in America’ was used immediately following [then] Sen. Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver,” recalled Recher, because for campaign staff and media alike, the song was forever linked to the Bush campaign.
It was “like he was stealing our song,” said Hill.
Gingrich, Buzzfeed reported, told the DJ at his victory party Saturday in South Carolina to pilfer songs often used by the Romney campaign.
If done well, a candidate can use a theme song to their advantage.
“If you do it right, it really can define your movement and your moment,” said Recher. “A good campaign pays attention to it and captures their message and their candidate in a song and uses it on repeat.”
He pointed to Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” as an example of success. Kildea called John Kerry’s use of “Beautiful Day” the best one that he had heard.
Songs can be used to convey a somewhat antagonistic message, too. For instance, on the campaign trail in 2000, Recher said, the Bush campaign played The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” at the end of Clinton’s presidency.
When creating the ideal playlist, campaigns look at several things. One is lyrics, to avoid having a Captain Jack moment. “You think songs would be good, and then you have to play the song beginning to end,” said Kildea.
Another is geography.
For instance, Beyer said, “when you’re campaigning in Alabama, maybe play a little ‘Sweet Home Alabama.'” But, he went on, “you wouldn’t play that in Louisiana.”
You also want songs that will excite the crowd and get them pumped up. Part of that is accomplished by making sure the music “matches the message and the candidate’s interests,” said Recher. But, he said, “you also have to look at what a candidate likes,” something that will get the candidate going as well as the crowd.
Then there are the legal concerns. Often, the artist will complain about a candidate using his or her song if their politics are not aligned. For instance, Tom Petty lodged a complaint that Michele Bachmann was taking the stage to his “American Girl,” and other artists like John Mellencamp have also complained in the past.
To avoid that, campaigns will often buy the legal rights to the song. For instance, Hill said, for the Bush re-election campaign in 2004, they bought “the entire ASCAP catalogue” for a sum that he said totaled over $10,000.
“Since many musicians were vocal opponents of President Bush, we would occasionally would get complaints,” Hill recalled. “But we had actually bought the rights for songs.”
Sometimes, however, a campaign will stop playing a song just to avoid the day or two of bad press that comes with such a complaint, Hill said.
Beyer lamented that this often meant that Republican campaigns fell back on country music.
“The Democrats seem to be able to get away with a lot more in terms of cooler, hipper music — and of course a lot of these artists tend to back them, so they have a little more fun. I was always very envious – you’ve got Dave Matthews performing at a Kerry event or whatever – I mean, that’s pretty impressive,” he said.