Other presidents are depicted as, well, egotistical bastards and as silver-tongued as a swampland salesman. Backed by a colonial marching tune, Washington Dreams of the Hippopotamus paints a decidedly unflattering account of the first president. Part swindler and part schemer, Kiefer’s Washington reeks of cynicism and political expediency: ‘“It is devoutly wished on my part that these precedents may be fixed on principles,”’ I said and those dumb asses believed me. With their powdered wigs and piggy eyes: Believed me.” Likewise, Chester Arthur, finding himself president after James Garfield’s assassination in 1881, is imagined in “The Epitome of Dignity” as an NFL-quality trash-talker who really doesn’t seem too bothered by his predecessor’s sudden death: “Oh hell yes. Now I am the president, but they’re on me like flies on shit… Oh Abraham, you got nothing on me. Just take a look at Chester! Aren’t I so beautiful?”
Other presidents are mocked as hapless and unfit for the job. Herbert Hoover, surveying the wreckage caused by the Great Depression, is derided as a clueless “dummy” unfit to counter the effects of the Depression. James Buchanan is similarly helpless, unable to stem the tide that would lead to the Civil War. In “God Will Strike You Down,” all he can muster is a plaintive admission of “what a mess we’re in…A war it will come to bury lonely me.”
Yet there are some genuine moments of compassion that offset the cynicism that runs through many of the songs. As successor to William Henry Harrison after his death by pneumonia in 1841, John Tyler is viewed with pity in “Hindsight Falls on Deaf Ears.” Sung by Bill Callahan and featuring minimal violin and guitar, Tyler admits that “in my darkest thoughts I never really wanted any of this.” Several others beg for a different life as they look back on their time as president. Jefferson Pitcher’s Harry Truman wishes for a simpler life as a clothing salesman after the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. In the mandolin song “Suits and Fine Trousers vs. Hiroshima,” Truman is a mess of conflicting emotions: “And where will they bury all of the bodies? I feel so sick inside. But every night I will pray that I have done the right thing. Oh God, forgive me. And ruin will rain down. Ruin will rain down on them…Will I rot in hell? Oh what was I thinking?” Lyndon Johnson confronts the legacy of his presidency – war in Vietnam, riots in Detroit, and the Great Society ultimately a failure – and alternately recalls his badass younger days (“1957. I was on top of the world. I’d corner them in the cloakroom and watch them shaking in their shoes”) and begs his wife to take him home to his ranch.
Article comments
1 - Bill in Scottsdale
43 banal songs is the most tiring self-absorbed rambling I've heard to date. What will Kiefer, Gerken and Pitcher's pretentious, self-absorbed follow-up be?... 365 songs for each day of the year! Kiefer's ego is only surpassed by his inability to play, sing or write... or possibly his penchant for esoteric monotony. This is the clown that is always slamming Phoenix and Arizona bands that play circles around him, when he can barely even play.