Harney the Honkin' hep cat

There's been a lot of talk recently about what sort of music politicians like to listen too, as there often is when there's elections coming up and stuff and they want to try to convince the voters that they're real people.

This recent bout was set off, however; by George Bush revealing what was on his iPod. Nice of him to share this information with us, now that he's being open and democratic amybe he'd like to tell us what his evidence is for his claim that Sadamm Hussein had links with Al_Queada.

Of Course, that's not going to happen, so we have to be thankful for slim pickings like the list we got last week.
I'm happy to relate that for the most part it confirms my prejudices that he's a man of little culture who's most happy listening to jingoistic country and western music written by people, who, like himself have never been outside America, and there doesn't appear to be a single Black or Female artist, which suggests that he's not really enjoying himslef all that much when he's listening to Condoleeza Rice play the piano.

It would have come as a shock if Dubya was into Free Jazz or early classical music or global groove or yo la tengo, I wouldnt have known what to think, except that Karl Rove was trying to make him look like an intellectual. According to Kitty Kelly, Bush's parents once lambasted someone for making them listen to a classical recital, which they descbribed as "awful music".

But there is one shock, and that's that he likes a couple of Irish artists, Van Morrison and The Thrills. Having seen the Thrills live last year and sung along to most of their songs, I have to say I feel a little violated and wish George would have kept this piece of information to himself. Still, it's out there and I can only console myself that his other choices show him to be a man that's totally out of touch with the music that people from the non-Texan part of the US, though it does beg the question of what he was doing when he wasnt studying in college as the answer to this question generally involves quality time with the stereo. It's kind of odd that Rove didn't suggest he put on some Jazz, Classical, folk or MOBO particularly when he appears to be only using 1GB from 20.

Anyway, not to be undone, the Guardian asked some British pols what tunes they were into. Apparently, it's been an open secret that Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary was one of the Children of the Revolution whose behavior shocked Cardinal Ratzinger so much, and he's got a collection of old Beatles and Stones records to prove it. Then Oliver Letwin said in a terribly English way that he wasn't sure which music common people listened to. Needless to mention, the person with the most well-rounded music collection was Charles Kennedy, not that that'll mean he'll get any votes.

Then on Sunday, our own Turbine got in on the act and asked some of our leaders which musicians they liked. Amazingly, they got a straight answer out of Bertie, who said it was the Bee Gees, which led the Turbine's psychologist to suggest that this was because of nostalgia for when he was young and hairy, which he certainly was. Enda Kenny told them he was a Springsteen fan, in keeping with his macho, Kilimanjaro-climbing, life-saving image.

Then they asked Mary Harney. I would have thought that her favourite band would have been Boston (Not Berlin, that's for sure) but apparently she likes Andrei Bocceli, which is just the sort of innofensive, middle-of-the-road stuff you'd expect her to like, although a part of me hoped she'd say that she never listened to music because work was more important.

Then she said she also liked Jazz, which I can't quite accept, as Jazz is a form of music associated with slacking, drug-taking and all the other things Mary Harney dissaproves of. But then it also originates in America, which for Harney is the root of all good things.

I don't know why she'd feel it necessacry to lie like this, as Will Hutton wrote a book saying how much better Europe was than America and said in the prefac that he was a big fan of Sheryl Crow (No Shit!) and apparently that Gaulist par excellence Jaques Delors is a jazz fan too. On the other hand, Condoleeza Rice is a trained classical pianist.

But then I could never imagine Harney smoking a reefer in a basement jazz club wearing a beret or searching for early Charlie Parker 45's.

But then no-one seemed brave enough to ask Micahel McDowell. But we all know that he listens to Wagner overtures and skinhead punk that he downloads from hate websites. Except he doesn't, because listening to music would make him a human being.