Songs About How the President is an Asshole

A few weeks ago, Rolling Stone published their list of the 25 Best Anti-Trump Protest Songs. It was a solid compilation of tunes. And truly, if the measure of a man is how many songs have been written about him, Donald Trump is the great artistic muse of our time.

But he’s hardly the first president to be immortalized in song. Songwriters have used their craft to eviscerate presidents for as long as we’ve had elections. Not only is this a well-worn tradition, but little about it has changed across more than 200 years worth of presidents.

Most songs written about presidents, then and now, have the same basic premise. The President is an asshole.

Our findings weren’t scientific. But raw evidence suggests that the bigger an asshole you are, the more songs you get during your presidency. Case in point, there aren’t that many songs bashing JFK, Jimmy Carter, or Obama. As for Biden…well, I wouldn’t call this searing commentary, but at least it’s concise.

And to prove that my observation is objective and non-partisan, I’ll point out that Gerald Ford got it pretty easy too. There’s really just this one from James Brown.

It’s a kickass tune, but it’s not particularly scathing next to something like this:

Indeed, volumes were written and scored on Vietnam War presidents LBJ and Richard Nixon.

Ronald Reagan inspired rage for a generation of punk singers and heartland rockers. Thanks to his broken promises and extracurricular activities, Bill Clinton got a hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. And obviously, both Bushes got their fair share of attention. As you might imagine, junior got way more tunes than his one-term daddy.

But this isn’t about which party has the bigger assholes. The real point is that songwriters have been targeting presidents with vitriol since the beginning of recorded music…and before.

If there is a spiritual predecessor to the modern attack ad, it is the campaign song.

Across a century of elections predating modern recording, presidential candidates traveled around the nation by train, making “whistle-stop” appearances at key polling locations. If you wanted people to remember who you were, or if alternatively, you wanted them to know why your opponent sucked, you had to have a catchy campaign song.

Campaign songs were a pretty popular way of marketing your campaign back in the day. A contemporary folk singer named Oscar Brand did a great job of compiling and recording these campaign songs for you. As you can see from his work, these songs date all the way back to George Washington.

Some campaign tunes aggrandize their subjects. Others criticize their opponents without remorse. Behold, this lullaby smackdown of John Tyler during the run-up to the 1840 election. Tyler was the running mate to William Henry Harrison, and both appeared on the ticket for the Whig party. They squared off against Democratic incumbent Martin Van Buren.

Their strategy was to appeal to rugged, cider-drinking, log-cabin dwelling folks. President Van Buren seized on this image by portraying his opponents as drunken frauds.

The mudslinging lullaby wasn’t enough to help Van Buren overcome economic recession. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler won in a landslide. History buffs will recall that Harrison suffered a fatal cold as a consequence of attending his own inauguration on a frigid and rainy January day in DC. He died one month later, making Tyler the president.

The campaign song is not just a precursor to the modern political attack ad. It’s also a template that folk singers would build on in the early 1900s. And that’s where our chronological playlist begins, with pioneering North Carolina-born string-band leader Charlie Poole mocking President McKinley for taking the bullet that would ultimately kill him.