Song 97: The Got No Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues, David Baerwald

Ads for David Baerwald's 1992 Triage album asked you to "Increase Your Paranoia and Win!" and includes a quote from Baerwald definition the album title:

Triage is a medical term. It basically means, in a situation where there are an unmanageable number of wounded, you save those you can save and you abandon the rest.

The Got No Shotgun HydraHead Octopus Blues from Triage is all drums and guitar and anger.

Song 98: Dear Mr. President, P!nk

I tried to keep the songs about Bush to a minimum on this Political Music Countdown. But there were two of them in the Wh!te House, so it took some doing.

P!nk bought airtime on radio stations around the USA to make sure people heard this song.

Who has the better catalogue of songs lined up against them? Reagan, Bush II or Nixon? Let me know. Include your full name and your city/town in your comment.

On Twitter? Say hi to P!nk here: http://twitter.com/Pink

Song 99: Jesusland, Ben Folds

Down the tracks
beautiful McMansions on a hill
that overlook a highway
with riverboat casinos and you still
have yet to see a soul

Alt-rock with a piano- It's a miracle. Ben Folds wishes the Bible Belt took the words of Jesus more seriously in this beautiful piece of melancholy.


Newfoundland reader and writer Danny MacEachern defended this song to me:


Ben Folds' music is decidedly personal, so any songs of his that qualify for this list unsurprisingly tackle social problems through the eyes of an individual, like the father raging against overconsumption in "All You Can Eat." in "Jesusland," the (possibly homeless) narrator in what seems to be the U.S. Bible belt appears almost defeated by the hypocrisy he sees in the gulf between Christian values in theory and Christian values in practice. "They drop your name but no one knows your face," he sings, lamenting the emptiness of a supposed community, despite all its McMansions. Still, he wants you to pray for Jesusland.

Song 100: Jerusalem, Dan Bern

Click here to listen.

Both Dan Bern's parents survived the Holocaust. He once said he called his regular group of backup musicians The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy because he "wanted some way of telling my Mom that from now on when they talk about the international Jewish banking conspiracy they’re just talking about my band."

Jerusalem is a wickedly funny song. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. I wish that was an exaggeration. I really do. You'd think once you've heard a really funny joke told a few dozen times you'd learn to control yourself. Part of it is that it's about the sensitive topic of religion, part is the faux-folk style Bern sings in, part of it is the absurd, near non-sequitor transition from the kinda cruel opening and the story that follows.

I told a few people that Jerusalem was Song 100 on the Political Song Countdown. They were pretty excited. Sorry rugby fans. April Fools.