I wrote one of my soupier songs about Tip O’Neill, to the tune of “On the Sunny Side of the Street”:
Vote your brains and vote your heart
Be a Democrat and feel good
Find yourself some style
On the TIP side of the aisle
Now just avoid the right
The Falwells, Helms, and Reagans
Tip will make you smile
On the donkey side of the aisle
Its fairness jobs and peace
They’re the framework of our party
Even walk a mile
To the TIP side of the aisle.
Words to the tune of “Ballin’ the Jack” to express my frustration with President Reagan’s arms buildup:
First you put a missile here and there
Then pretty soon there are missiles everywhere
It’s all okay ’til they start to blow
And then we turn around and look around
And what do you know
All the trees and buildings
The people too
All the dogs and cats just to name a few
The things we love they are no more
And that’s what we call nuclear war
It’s strange to sing about a thing like war
But talking does no good to Ron, we’ve tried before
We’ve shown him the graphs but he takes no heed
So what’s the point building bombs that we don’t need
Stop all the testing, ask your congressman
To cut off the funding get a real test ban
Then join with colleagues one by one
And lead our children into the sun.
One thing that helped me recover from the attempt to impeach President Clinton, at least temporarily, was to write a song that celebrated all the good things about the Clinton–Gore years (lyrics to the tune of “The Way We Were”):
Memories
Of the days of Bill and Al
We have happy White House memories
Of the way we were
Oh the victories
Like the deficit we slew
And the children getting health care
They’re insured, that’s new
We put cops on streets where there were killers
We put teachers right in every class
We passed bills by one vote,
They were thrillers
Like clean air
Child care
Yes we’ve got memories
Big surplus memories
Those balanced budget memories of
The way we were.
My way to deal with awful things I haven’t been able to prevent was, as always, to write a song. This one has the title “The Supreme Disappointment” and is to the tune of “My Favorite Things.”
Scalia and Rehnquist and Sandra and Tony
How could you find our election laws phony?
Don’t you think every vote counts in the land?
Why didn’t one of you just take a stand?
Where’s the statute?
Where’s the refute?
Where’s the precedent?
I’m not on the court but I think it’s a tort
It’s not what our founders meant!
About the Bush–Gore contested 2000 election to the tune of “It Was Just One of Those Things”:
It was just one of those nights
We needed a fantasy flight
At ten we were flops
Just one of those nights.
It was just one of these nights,
Just one of those terrible nights
At twelve we had won,
At one we were done
Just one of those nights
CNN was wrong, ABC was wrong
But it’s clear that Fox was the worst
Channel two was wrong
Channel nine was wrong
How could Bush, who lost, wind up first?
It was just one of those nights
Those nights that bring heat and not light
What a good fight
But it was just one of those nights!
To the melody of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina,” I wrote this during the Iraq War:
Don’t cry for us, Condoleezza
You are the one who told us of tubes aluminum
Of weapons there were none
Your truth was half baked with yellow fake cake
Here’s a non-musical little rhyme I wrote about being mistaken for Nancy Pelosi:
I don’t look like Nancy
She doesn’t look like me
But Californians mix us up
Explain how can that be?
We’ve pondered this for years
We’ve held some seminars
We think it’s ’cause we’re in the face
Of right-wing demagogues
From Limbaugh to Hannity
From Savage to Coulter
We view their attacks
As a huge badge of honor.
After the 2004 Ohio voting fiasco to the tune of “Smiles”:
There are lines
That make me happy
Like baseball lines
That lead from base to base
There are lines
That also make me grumpy
Like these lines
Right here upon my face
But the lines that make me sad and worried
Are the ones that foil democracy
’Cause those lines
Prevent our folks from voting
And without votes we can’t be free.
Harry Reid often tells me I’m the sister he never had. And, Harry, you are the brother I never had. I wrote a song about him, to the tune of “Sunny.”
Harry… thank you for the strength you give to us
Harry… thank you for the way you make them cuss
So you’re not a TV star
We just take you as you are
Harry blue and true
No one like you
Harry… working from the day until the night
Harry… never turns away when there’s a fight
We’re so glad you changed the rules
Good thing there are no Senate duels
Harry blue and true
No one like you.
I wrote words about how good it would be if more women were in politics, to the tune of “If I Ruled the World”:
When girls rule the world
Major problems will be
Solved every way
We’d use friendship and some
Guilt every day
If girls ruled the world.
There would be fairness in slices of pie
If your shoe heels are low or they’re high
When the time ever comes
That girls rule the world.