Mellencamp to McCain: Stop Playing My Music

McCain is using two John Mellencamp songs at his rallies, "Our Country" and "Pink Houses." Mellencamp has asked McCain to stop, having never given permission. In other words, they violated Mellencamp's intellectual property. More stupid, the songs are critical and ironic concerning Republican ideals. Shades of Reagan and Springsteen, eh?

Ronald Reagan is realtively infamous for having to be called by a rock star to cease and desist. Reagan's people (supposedly spurred on by a clueless George Will) used Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as a campaign theme song in 1984 until Springsteen's people asked them to stop. I'm not sure any of Reagan's people understood the ironies of the use of that song, which is about the sourness the Vietnam adventure left in the soul of the working man of America. Yeah, it talks about how working stiffs got screwed by folks like Reagan, who supported that role.

Heck, even John McCain is featuring Reagan's support of the war in Vietnam in his ads. He's also using theme music, and he's also had the artist who recorded the music call and ask him to stop. McCain is using John Mellencamp's "Our Country" and "Pink Houses," also without permission. As it is noted in the Rolling Stone, if only they'd listened to the lyrics, they'd not have made this mistake.

Come on, the Radical Religious Right-wing Christian Clerics are not going to go for lyrics focused on keeping science in the classroom and helping out the poor! From Cowboylyrics.com: