Top100 Songs that mention US presidents

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Bonus points for songs or albums that have the president's name in the title!
Songs that namecheck first ladies or first pets also count.
And president's children, too.

I'll start with

Lambchop - Nixon
Lach - Former President Bush

and a ton of Sufjan Stevens songs of course.

― sibsi (sibsi), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:26 (twenty years ago)

That whole "ten guns and Nixon coming" thing that Neil Young did.

― Jay Watts III (jaywatts), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

3.the music machine - taxman (americanized lyrics...)

― peter smith (plsmith), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

Juliana Hatfield Three - 'President Garfield'

― derrick (derrick), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:33 (twenty years ago)

5. David Bowie - Young Americans

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:36 (twenty years ago)

My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down/ Bonzo Goes to Bitburg

..President Carter, LOVES repetition...

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:37 (twenty years ago)

Stars - He Lied About Death
talking to Bush Jr.:
"I hope your drunken daughters are gay"

― sibsi (sibsi), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

nixon-- dead milkmen, "life is shit"

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

Manic Street Preachers - "the Love of Richard Nixon"

― Roz (Roz), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

10. "what you think thirty three in the glock is for?! black fatigues, skullies and binoculars, c4, block your doors, niggas can't stop this war, i show you faggots what this swatz is for! hiding spots in the door for the glocks is for, read the papers, eighteen thirty four, i took the whig party to war, only reason you switchin up is cause you keep gettin robbed, i looked that nigga in the eyes before i send him to god. william henry harrison, the realest nigga alive.

shit man, i'm out." -Ethan P

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Friday, 22 July 2005 18:45 (twenty years ago)

Super Furry Animals - Presidential Suite

'Monica and naughty Billy
Got together something silly now
Holy wars out of lusty minutes
Another Cuban cigar crisis
Honestly!
Do we need to know if he really came inside her mouth?
How will all this affect me
Now and later'

― sibsi (sibsi), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:50 (twenty years ago)

"Song to Abe Lincoln" - Roky Erickson

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:51 (twenty years ago)

they might be giants, "james k. polk"

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:53 (twenty years ago)

15. President Kennedy's Mile ... the screaming blue messiahs

16. "Mister we could use a man like Hoyboot Hoovah agaaaaiiinn"

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Friday, 22 July 2005 18:55 (twenty years ago)

Camper Van Beethoven - Sweethearts

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:02 (twenty years ago)

Dallas version of "Less Than Zero":

Jenny takes her clothes off in succession,
While her husband rides a bumper in the President's procession.

And I think "Abraham, Martin And John" gets extra credit for having two just in the title.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

"herbert hoover, he's underground,
stupid underground.
lbj is underground,
super underground.
grover cleveland, he's underground,
mass underground.
william howard taft is underground,
straight underground.
zack taylor, ya know he's underground,
crazy underground.
calvin coolidge is underground,
he's hella underground.
even big gw,
yeah you know he's underground,
deep down."

cLOUDDEAD - "And All You Can Do Is Laugh (1)"

― Anti-Pope Consortium (noodle vague), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

Anything by the Dead Kennedys or Clinton. Also Gonzales has an album called Presidential Suite. All in all I'm not really answering the thread here am I?

― Nick H (Nick H), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:14 (twenty years ago)

"Campaigner" Neil Young "Where even Richard Nixon has got soul"

"Puttin' People On The Moon" Drive-By Truckers "Goddamn Reagan's in the White House and nobody gives a damn"

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)

Mekons - "Ghosts of American Astronauts"

A flag flying in the vacuum
Nixon sucks a dry Martini

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)

I had to do it:

BILLY JOEL - WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE

― Rob Upt1ght, Friday, 22 July 2005 19:30 (twenty years ago)

That Misfits song "Texas Is The Reason"? I can't recall if there was specific JFK mention...

Ewww, Billy Joel!

― Jay Watts III (jaywatts), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

30. "Jimmy Carter Says Yes" of the American Song Poem Anthology (totally amazing, download NOW)
31. Beastie Boys - "Shadrach" (Harry S. Truman)

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:45 (twenty years ago)

32. The Dream Academy - "Life in a Northern Town" (JFK)

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

33. Concrete Blonde, "Tomorrow Wendy" (Kennedy is still alive)

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

34. Lou Reed - The Day John Kennedy Died

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Friday, 22 July 2005 19:54 (twenty years ago)

35.) "Killer Queen" by Queen

That Misfits song is called "Bullet" and it does mention Kennedy's head gone free in it.

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 22 July 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

36. "Slow Education" Silver Jews
37. "Jimmy Carter" Blue Mountain
38. "Don't Let Me Explode" The Hold Steady

― watch, Friday, 22 July 2005 20:49 (twenty years ago)

Magazine's "Model Worker" has the line "I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know that Carter will look after me." A later love version changes "Carter" to "Reagan."

― Dee Xtrovert (dee dee), Friday, 22 July 2005 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Johnny Cash - Mister Garfield
Dead Kennedys - Dear Abby (Reagan)
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles (Carter)
Tumor Circus - Hazing for Success (Bush Snr)

― Ben Dot (1977), Friday, 22 July 2005 21:48 (twenty years ago)

paris, "bush killa"
rolling stones, "sympathy for the devil"

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 22 July 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

Men's Recovery Project - Ronald Reagan

― OLD SPICE® CHEMTRAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (ex machina), Friday, 22 July 2005 22:07 (twenty years ago)

RUSSIANS by Gordon Sumner

― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Friday, 22 July 2005 22:18 (twenty years ago)

Nonphixion - I Shot Reagan

― Alan Conceicao (Alan Conceicao), Friday, 22 July 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

More fun with the Kennedy assassination:

Tori Amos - Jackie's Strength
Grant Lee Buffalo - Lone Star Song

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Friday, 22 July 2005 23:04 (twenty years ago)

"President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note pad in his hand
The President say, 'Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land.'"

'Louisiana 1927' by Randy Newman

― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Friday, 22 July 2005 23:11 (twenty years ago)

The Fall - "Repetition" ["President Carter loves repetition"]

Camper Van Beethoven - "Joe Stalin's Cadillac" ["L.B.J.’s Cadillac - We’re just peein’ on the side of the road in L.B.J.’s Cadillac" or something]. That Ronald Reagan bit in the aforemention "Sweethearts" seems kinda creepy since the dementia. There are surely more - they certainly make endless references to non-US cold war era presidents, anonymous anti-communists, Jack Ruby, etc.

Gil Scott Heron - "The Revolution Will Not be Televised" ["The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary" and more tenuously "There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news, and no pictures of hairy-armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose"]

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:18 (twenty years ago)

..President Carter, LOVES repetition...

Whoops. That'll teach me not to text-search by artist alone. :(

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:27 (twenty years ago)

??? - "America's Calling, Harry Truman" or whatever it's called - Chicago

Also, has anybody mentioned the theme from *All in the Family* yet ("mister we could use a man like Hoibert Hoover again")? I'm too sleepy to check. I don't know what it's called, though.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 23 July 2005 03:29 (twenty years ago)

56. simply red - "moneys to tight to mention"
We’re talking ’bout reaganomics
i also like the "did the earth move for ya nancy" part at the end.

57. heaven 17 - "groove thang"
Democrats are out of power
Across that great wide ocean
Reagan’s president elect
Fascist God in motion
Generals tell him what to do
Stop your good time dancing
Train their guns on me and you
Fascist thang advancing

― drone/a/saur (william), Saturday, 23 July 2005 03:57 (twenty years ago)

John Lennon - "Gimme Some Truth" ("No short haired, yellow bellied, son of Tricky Dicky's gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me.")

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 23 July 2005 04:05 (twenty years ago)

One of the Godz does an LBJ impersonation in "Riffin'" - A GREAT SONG

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 23 July 2005 04:06 (twenty years ago)

60. Jimmy Carter in Tim Curry's "I Do the Rock."

And if we can count presidential siblings, 61 can be Senator Bobby, "Wild Thing."

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Saturday, 23 July 2005 05:21 (twenty years ago)

"Lost", Meat Puppets (or the Minutemen)

I've grown tired of living Nixon's mess.

― t. fiend, Saturday, 23 July 2005 08:18 (twenty years ago)

Time Zone "World Destruction"
one of the remixes on the Celluloid 12" has a sample of a soundbite repeated through the track that says, "Mr. Reagan has a thing about arms control"...... or something like that

― Marshall Stax (Marshall Stax), Saturday, 23 July 2005 08:56 (twenty years ago)

"Purple Toupee" - They Might Be Giants

...Somebody put their fingers in the President's ears,
It wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax...

― Sweat Loaf (Sweat Loaf), Saturday, 23 July 2005 09:05 (twenty years ago)

Sorry ... 63.

― Sweat Loaf (Sweat Loaf), Saturday, 23 July 2005 09:05 (twenty years ago)

Destroy All Monsters - November 22nd 1963

Jackie... Jackie... Hold Onto His Brains and so on

― LRJP! (LRJP!), Saturday, 23 July 2005 09:20 (twenty years ago)

We are the mediocre presidents
You won't find our faces on dollars or on cents
There's Taylor, there's Tyler, there's Fillmore and there's Hayes!
There's William Henry Harrison - "I died in thirty days!"
We are the adequate, forgettable, occasionally regrettable
Caretaker presidents of the U.S.A!

― DJ Mencap0))), Saturday, 23 July 2005 10:43 (twenty years ago)

1963 - new order " JFK"

― sernard bummer, Saturday, 23 July 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

'FDR in Trinidad' by Ry Cooder from 'Into the Purple Valley'

― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Saturday, 23 July 2005 12:29 (twenty years ago)

Steely Dan: Here At The Western World

"Lay down your Jackson and you will see the secrets..."

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Saturday, 23 July 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

Jazz Butcher "President Reagan's B-Day Present"

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Saturday, 23 July 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

I forget what number we're on, but NRBQ's "Mama Get Down Those Rock & Roll Shoes" had an offhanded, adlibbed reference to President Nixon.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 23 July 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

Tom Ze -- "Companheiro Bush"

― nolancromwell, Saturday, 23 July 2005 22:16 (twenty years ago)

Butch Hancock -- "Talkin' Bout that Panama Canal"

It mentions all the presidents, up to Bush 1. The verses consist of wishing them all merry christmas one by one, then the chorus goes:

"Talkin' bout that Panama Canal
Talkin' bout that Panama Canal
Noriega is a fugitive, but he was once somebody's pal
We're talkin' 'bout that Panama Canal."

Recorded early 90s obviously.

― carl w (carl w), Saturday, 23 July 2005 23:25 (twenty years ago)

Lets not forget the classic Ted Nugent song "Kiss My Ass" that when played live in the late 90's/early 00's, referenced Bill Clinton, Hillary...

― Bryan Moore (Bryan Moore), Sunday, 24 July 2005 00:58 (twenty years ago)

2 more Lincolns:

Album: TMBG "Lincoln" (surprised no one jumped on that)

Song: Big Dipper "Hey, Mr. Lincoln" ("...why the long face?")

― Declan Zimmerman, Sunday, 24 July 2005 02:02 (twenty years ago)

Songs that namecheck first ladies or first pets also count.

adding:

"I Want To Be Jackie Onassis" - Human Sexual Response

― Declan Zimmerman, Sunday, 24 July 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

And that is one excellent song. I think The Fools did it originally around 1979-80.

Also: Johnny Horton - Battle of New Orleans

In 1814 we took a little trip, Along with Colonel Jackson
down the mighty Mississip... He got promoted to president at a later date.

― jim wentworth (wench), Sunday, 24 July 2005 02:21 (twenty years ago)

"Ronnie Talk to Russia" Prince

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 24 July 2005 03:13 (twenty years ago)

"Bush" David Banner

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 24 July 2005 03:14 (twenty years ago)

"Ronnie Talk to Russia" Prince

-- gypsy mothra (meetm...), July 24th, 2005.
good taste , good song

― bambi, Sunday, 24 July 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

NOFX - Reagan Sucks

― cicatrix, Monday, 25 July 2005 01:56 (twenty years ago)

and, er, a college roomate used to play this..cuz, I, like, honestly hate the band:

Phish - "Dear Mrs. Reagan"

― cicatrix, Monday, 25 July 2005 01:58 (twenty years ago)

And that is one excellent song. I think The Fools did it originally around 1979-80.

Hmm... HSR version I'm familiar with dates from same period, can be found on Rhino's D.I.Y. Boston disc. Always thought they originated it... or could there be confusion similar to the "ween" version of "gin & juice" that turns out to be The Gourds?

Adding Lennon again, in "God" : "I don't believe in Kennedy"

― Declan Zimmerman, Monday, 25 July 2005 03:17 (twenty years ago)

Lost on the numbering, but Jefferson Airplane's "Mexico" and Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship's "Mau Mau (Amerikon)" both reference Nixon directly.

Also, from the Hair soundtrack, "Happy Birthday Abe-y Baby."

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 25 July 2005 04:59 (twenty years ago)

xpost
Hmm... HSR version I'm familiar with dates from same period...

Well, the song is a bit too obscure for google to come to our rescue but the more I think about this, the more I think you're right. I'll give it to ya.

I don't know why I keep mulling this over, but now I'm sure you're correct.

Also: (if this counts) Happy Birthday Mr. President - Marilyn Monroe

― jim wentworth (wench), Monday, 25 July 2005 05:09 (twenty years ago)

Presidents on drugs:

Cypress Hill, "I Wanna Get High": "Tell Bill Clinton to go and inhale!"
My Dog Popper, "Acid Flashback" (Reagan suffers one!)
Country Joe & The Fish, "Super Bird" ("It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a man insane/It's my President, LBJ!"; and even HE drops some acid at song's end!)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Monday, 25 July 2005 07:56 (twenty years ago)

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