Songs To Lose Elections To

Recently, John McCain and Barack Obama provided Blender with lists of their ten favorite songs. McCain, it seems, likes his Abba something awful and hasn’t heard a new song since Jimmy Carter held office. Obama is considerably more current, but he picked a Springsteen tune that we doubt The Boss even likes all that much.

To be fair, both candidates’ selections are pretty good, if awfully safe. Where’s the danger? Maybe I’d like to be President some day. Should I omit The Hold Steady’s songs from my picks lest the electorate believe I support the indiscriminate ingestion of pharmaceuticals? And why does this standard only apply to music? I can tell you my favorite movie is The Godfather without implying support for the mafia. I can tell you the last great novel I read is The Road without being wistful for a nuclear apocalypse. But if I say that I dig “Under My Thumb,” I’ll surely find myself under assault from NOW, and also from the other four fingers who feel slighted by the attention heaped upon that titular digit.

So I got to thinking. If you’re running for President, and a magazine asks you for a list of your favorite songs, which ones should you probably not include? For starters, avoid these ten:

1. "Too Drunk to F***" - Dead Kennedys
2. "I Touch Myself" - Divinyls
3. "Heroin" - Velvet Underground
4. "Psycho Killer" – Talking Heads
5. "World Destruction" - Time Zone
6. “Used to Love Her (But I Had to Kill Her)” – Guns N’ Roses
7. “Erotic City” – Prince
8. “Welcome to the Terrordome” – Public Enemy
9. “Smack My B**** Up” – Prodigy
10. “Let’s Go Get Stoned” – Ray Charles