“No Kings” playlist

For readers who protested today, some lyrics by Elvin Bishop during the first Trump dictatorship (album version on YouTube):

He is the president, but wants to be the king
Know what I like about the guy? Not a goddamn thing
I want to know, how can four years seem so long?
Yeah, Lord have mercy, what the hеll is going on?

Here’s an adapted version performed to the delight of a San Francisco audience after the

A 12-year-old’s comment on the above: “If the guy hates Trump so much why does he look just like him?”

We attended 100 percent of today’s No Kings protests in Jupiter, Florida and, thus, can proudly display the following meme:

I asked ChatGPT for some suggestions of appropriate classical music:

  • Beethoven – Eroica Symphony (No. 3, 1804): Originally dedicated to Napoleon as a “hero of liberty,” until Beethoven tore up the dedication when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor.
  • Giuseppe Verdi – Nabucco (1842), especially “Va, pensiero”: The Hebrew slaves’ lament became a covert anthem for Italian independence from Austrian rule.
  • Richard Wagner – Rienzi (1842): A Roman tribune rises against corrupt nobles and tyranny. (Note that, unlike Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Wagner is in no way associated with National Socialism/Hitler.)
  • Béla Bartók – Concerto for Orchestra (1943): Includes a mocking “interruption” of a Nazi marching tune — a defiant gesture during World War II.

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6 thoughts on ““No Kings” playlist

  1. Unfortunately I missed the “No Kings” protests here in NYC, but I did notice a few geezers heading home with placards after a hard day of protesting. Thought the geezers were disappointed that Pete Seeger himself did not show up to sing Zohran Mamdani’s campaign song: “Banks of Marble”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-o3CJytIPE

    • @🦁

      Really bad music, made by cultural appropriation?

      “I’ve got the ‘sitting in a rocking chair, screeching out sanctimony, losing synchrony by the minute, musty ol’ white geezer’ blues. Woo…hoo. [cough, cough]”

  2. Thanks for the Bela Bartok. I love him but he is an acquired taste. He does not even use key signatures because there is no key. The Elvin Bishop was actually good as well.

    • I celebrate and celebrated every event relating to George Santos, the chosen representative of people who say that they’re America’s smartest and most sophisticated voters (i.e., New Yorkers)! I adore him for the same reason that I adore Elizabeth Holmes, the favorite (pre-Fauci) #Scientist of the Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. elite. And, just as I think Elizabeth Holmes should be free while her investors are imprisoned, I think that George Santos should be free as a reminder of the political wisdom that we can expect from New Yorkers.

      Maybe it would have been better if Santos had been released today, as part of a Diwali celebration (“the spiritual victory of Dharma over Adharma, light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”).

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