The Week That Was: What’s in a song?
Apparently a lot, if the song happens to be Heart’s
1977 hit “Barracuda” and the people
playing it happen to work for Republican vice
presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Moments after the McCain
camp used the song to highlight the GOP’s brash
new political star, Heart front women Nancy and
Ann Wilson publicly issued a cease-and-desist order.
As the McCain campaign continues using the song on the
trail, the battle lines have been drawn... but who's
going to come out victorious?
What’s in
a song? Apparently a lot, if the song happens to be
Heart’s 1977 hit “Barracuda” and
the people playing it happen to work
for Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
Following
Governor Palin’s address to the Republican National
Convention, strains of Heart’s classic
“Barracuda” filtered through the Xcel
Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., in deference to the
first female GOP vice presidential nominee.
After Palin made
such a forceful and at times biting debut on the
national political stage, the song seemed a dead-on choice
to symbolize the GOP’s brash new political
star. In fact, Palin earned the nickname "Sarah
Barracuda” as a basketball player at her Wasilla,
Alaska, high school for being a tough competitor.
Now flash-forward
to the next day.
Heart front
women Nancy and Ann Wilson were so aghast by the GOP
ticket’s use of their music to promote Palin that
they publicly issued a cease-and-desist order asking
the McCain campaign to stop using their song,
posthaste.
In a statement to
Entertainment Weekly , the Wilson sisters even went so far as to say
that "Sarah Palin's views and values in no
way [their emphasis] represent us as American
women."
One might have
thought that would be the end of the story, but
Heart’s former guitarist Roger Fisher, who
cowrote "Barracuda," had a different take on the
matter. Fisher told Reuters he believed that the
McCain camp’s use of the song benefited both sides:
Republicans get "the ingenious placement of a kick-ass
song" -- and Heart gets headlines and royalties. Part
of that money, Fisher said, would be heading to the
Arizona senator’s opponent: "With my contribution to
Obama's campaign, the Republicans are now supporting Obama."
The McCain
campaign didn't respond to The Advocate's
requests for comment. However, according to CNN.com, the
campaign has said that it had paid for and obtained all
necessary licenses before using "Barracuda."
Hence, the song
was still blaring through the streets of towns like
Lebanon, Ohio, last week as McCain and Palin barnstormed
through this year’s most contentious
battleground states.
A spokesperson
for Ann and Nancy Wilson has yet to comment further, so
to quote the opening line of “Barracuda”
–- “So, this ain’t the
end.”
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