http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11letter.html
(Earlier today the headline was "Tunes for the Freewheelin' George Bush")
White House Letter
President Bush's iPod
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
April 11, 2005
WASHINGTON
Between his return on Friday from Pope John Paul II's funeral in Rome
and his meeting today with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel,
President Bush spent an hour and a half on Saturday on an 18-mile
mountain bike ride at his Texas ranch. With him, as usual, was his
indispensable new exercise toy: an iPod music player loaded with
country and popular rock tunes aimed at getting the presidential
heart rate up to a chest-pounding 170 beats per minute.
Which brings up the inevitable question. What, exactly, is on the
First iPod? In an era of celebrity playlists - Tom Brady, the New
England Patriots quarterback, recently posted his on the iTunes
online music store - what does the presidential selection of
downloaded songs tell us about Mr. Bush?
First, Mr. Bush's iPod is heavy on traditional country singers like
George Jones, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney. He has selections by
Van Morrison, whose "Brown Eyed Girl" is a Bush favorite, and by John
Fogerty, most predictably "Centerfield," which was played at Texas
Rangers games when Mr. Bush was an owner and is still played at
ballparks all over America. ("Oh, put me in coach, I'm ready to play
today.")
The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his
iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media
strategist during the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by
John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell
and "My Sharona," the 1979 song by the Knack that Joe Levy, a deputy
managing editor at Rolling Stone in charge of music coverage,
cheerfully branded "suggestive if not outright filthy" in an
interview last week.
Mr. Bush has had his Apple iPod since July, when he received it from
his twin daughters as a birthday gift. He has some 250 songs on it, a
paltry number compared to the 10,000 selections it can hold. Mr.
Bush, as leader of the free world, does not take the time to download
the music himself; that task falls to his personal aide, Blake
Gottesman, who buys individual songs and albums, including Mr.
Jones's and Mr. Jackson's greatest hits, from the iTunes music store.
Mr. Bush uses his iPod chiefly during bike workouts to help him pump
up his heartbeat, which he monitors with a wrist strap. The strap
also keeps track of calories expended for the intensely
weight-focused president, who has recently lost eight pounds after
eating a lot of doughnuts during the 2004 campaign. Mr. Bush burned
1,300 calories on his bike ride on Saturday, Mr. McKinnon reported.
As for an analysis of Mr. Bush's playlist, Mr. Levy of Rolling Stone
started out with this: "One thing that's interesting is that the
president likes artists who don't like him."
Mr. Levy was referring to Mr. Fogerty, who was part of the anti-Bush
"Vote for Change" concert tour across the United States last fall.
Mr. McKinnon, who once wrote songs for Kris Kristofferson's music
publishing company, responded in an e-mail message that "if any
president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians,
it would be a pretty slim collection."
Nonetheless, Mr. McKinnon said that Mr. Bush had not gone so far as
to include on his playlist "Fortunate Son," the angry anti-Vietnam
war song about who has to go to war that Mr. Fogerty sang when he was
with Creedence Clearwater Revival. ("I ain't no senator's son ...
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.") As the son of a two-term
congressman and a United States Senate candidate, Mr. Bush won a
coveted spot with the Texas Air National Guard to avoid combat in
Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Mr. Levy sized up the rest of the playlist of the
58-year-old president. "What we're talking about is a lot of great
artists from the 60's and 70's and more modern artists who sound like
great artists from the 60's and 70's," he said. "This is basically
boomer rock 'n' roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for
boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving. What I mean to say
is, it's feel-good music. The Sex Pistols it's not."
Mr. Jones, Mr. Levy said, was nonetheless an interesting choice.
"George Jones is the greatest living singer in country music and a
recovering alcoholic who often sings about heartbreak and drinking,"
he said. "It tells you that the president knows a thing or two about
country music and is serious about his love of country music."
The songs by Mr. Jackson indicate that the president "has a little
bit of a taste for hard core and honky-tonk," Mr. Levy said, adding
that both Mr. Jackson and Mr. Jones "are not about cute and pop, and
they're not getting by on their looks." And while Mr. Chesney "is
about cute and pop and gets by on his looks," Mr. Levy said, "he's
also all about serious country music."
Mr. McKinnon, who has downloaded "Castanets" by Alejandro Escovedo
and "Alive 'N' Kickin' " by Kenny Loggins into Mr. Bush's iPod, said
that sometimes a presidential playlist is just a playlist, nothing
more.
"No one should psychoanalyze the song selection," Mr. McKinnon said.
"It's music to get over the next hill."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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