This from billboard.com:

The Foo Fighters have blasted the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain for using the band’s song “My Hero” at rallies without its permission.

Previously, Jackson Browne filed suit against the McCain campaign for using his song “Running on Empty” without consent.

“It’s frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to speak for the American people would repeatedly show such little respect for creativity and intellectual property,” the band says in a statement. “The saddest thing about this is that ‘My Hero’ was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.”

And let’s not forget Heart’s “Barracuda.”

Maybe they should ask Ted Nugent for something.

Grant Brissey covered everything from hard news and technology, to music, film, and visual arts during his time working for The Stranger. Grant's work has also appeared at Geekwire, and in Billboard,...

30 replies on “More Campaign Song Trouble for McCain…”

  5. “Maybe they should ask Ted Nugent for something.”

    Ted has so many songs apropos for McCain’s campaign.

    Stranglehold
    Great White Buffalo
    Yank Me Crank Me

    and for Palin

    Little Miss Dangerous

  8. @4 and 5,

    Not to mention “Stormtroopin'”, “Dog Eat Dog”, and “Writing on the Wall”.

    However, considering the threat that Palin represents, I would recommend against “Death by Misadventure.”

  11. his campaign should use britney spears songs, since she’s supposedly a republican. hmm, actually, she didn’t write any of her songs, so maybe that’s moot. but, if he could, he should use “oops i did it again” to allude to the non-stop faux pas of his candidacy.

  12. @3 it would work for the title only. The song is really about something quite different

    Nowhere man, please listen
    you don’t know what you’re missin’
    nowhere man, the world is at your command

    just as Revolution isn’t about revolution but the inverse (you better free your mind instead), Nowhere Man is about getting past your self-imposed limitations (living inside your head and not in the world).

    isn’t he a bit like you and me?

  13. some pieces aren’t copywrighted.for instance, “jesu, joy of man’s desiring” by JS Bach. that’d work.

    what about the theme from maverick the TV show? they’d probably be happy to make a few bucks off something that’s mothballed.

  16. Doesn’t really “fit” the campain, buy if he came out with “California Love” pushin’ the cones, I’d be like “Awwwww shit!!!”

  17. I think he should pick a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, so everyone would immediately change the channel whenever one of his silly commercials came on.

  21. “Poor Fractured Atlas” by Elvis Costello. Here’s the lyrics:

    He’s out in the woods with his squirrel gun
    To try to recapture his anger
    He’s screaming some words at the top of his lungs
    Until he begins to feel younger
    But back at his desk in the city we find
    Our trembling punch-drunken fighter
    Who can’t find the strength now to punish the length
    Of the ribbon in his little typewriter

    [Chorus:]
    Poor Fractured Atlas
    Threw himself across the mattress
    Waving his withering pencil
    As if it were a pirate’s cutlass
    I’m almost certain he’s trying to increase his burden
    He said “That’s how the child in me planned it;
    A woman wouldn’t understand it”

    I believe there was something that I wanted to say
    Before I conclude this epistle
    But you would forgive me for holding my tongue
    ‘Cause man made the blade and the pistol
    Yes man made the waterfall over the dam
    To temper his tantrum with magic
    Now you can’t be sure of that tent of azure
    Since he punched a hole in the fabric

    [Chorus]

    A woman wouldn’t understand it
    A woman wouldn’t understand it

  24. Jessica Simpson’s a Republican … hmmm. “Irresistable?”

    “But he’s irresistible
    Up close and personal
    Now inescapable
    I can hardly breathe,
    More than just physical
    Deeper than spiritual
    His ways are powerful
    And irresistible to me …”

    Now THAT should be paired with “Barack-uda,” but for Mr Obama though.

    Back to the drawing board …

  28. “The Star Spangled Banner” not good enough for John McCain? Too patriotic? Too American? Too much about loving your country? I guess those viet cong beat all that out of McCain, if any of it was ever in him. Makes me sick.

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