As we discuss the role music plays in election campaigns, why not post us a message suggesting songs for the three parties to use in their upcoming campaigns? Simply click the ‘leave comment’ button below this article and send us your ideas. We’ll round up the funniest and most appropriate, and post them here next week along with some of our own suggestions.
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Twitter was awash with comments on the choice of music in the countdown to David Cameron’s speech this afternoon. With Nick Robinson commenting earlier on how the Tories are usually very good at stage-managing their conferences, the playlist had clearly been carefully selected to influence and synchronize the audience’s reaction as the minutes ticked down to two o’clock.
Some tweets bemoaned the playing of downbeat tracks by Coldplay and Keane - the latter’s ‘Everybody’s Changing’ was a less-than-subtle reinforcement of the party’s message — but these songs were perhaps intended to dampen the mood slightly so that the subsequent heightening would be even clearer.
The audience was therefore treated to more uplifting tunes like ‘Have A Nice Day’ and ‘Mr Blue Sky’ just before Cameron’s appearance — again, clearly intended to tie in with the picture-perfect cobalt-blue skyline being projected onto the screens behind the stage — and tweeters duly reported that the atmosphere was electric.
All this musical discussion got me thinking about election campaign songs. The parties may well choose some apposite tunes to strengthen their messages over the coming months, but how can they avoid the very real possibility of picking a cringeworthy one? Is the very idea of a campaign song cringeworthy?
We might now look back on Labour’s choice of ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ in 1997 with a certain irony, but at the time many people were too swept along in the euphoria to think the choice particularly cheesy, or to notice the potential embarrassment the title might cause in time. The lesson is surely not to pick a song with a title that could come back to haunt you.
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign benefitted hugely from its campaign songs, perhaps because they were original, born of the moment and his supporters rather than being appropriated by advisers for political gain. ‘I’ve Got A Crush On Obama’ was a huge YouTube hit for ObamaGirl, as was ‘Yes We Can’, written and performed by some of his celebrity fans.
Whether Brown, Cameron, Clegg or their respective parties will inspire similar campaign songs is yet to be seen, but it seems rather unlikely. The British don’t usually do elections with the same celebrity pop-culture as our American cousins (which many will view as a good thing), although the Conservatives did have U2’s Bono speaking just before Cameron’s speech — could this have been the prelude to the Tories using one of the band’s tracks?