We Didn't Vote For Dubya!

Original song's lyrics:  http://uploader.wuerzburg.de/gym-fkg/schule/fachber/englisch/joel/songtext.html

That site has hyperlinks to explanations of all of Joel's references.  



Billy Joel's original song is structured so that each
line covers events or notables in a particular year, 
starting with 1949 and going one year at a time until 
1964, at which time he accelerates the years and packs 
2 verses with 25 years of history and culture, 
finishing in 1989.  

I started with the title of the song, and the idea to 
begin the progression with an overview of the Reagan 
years, as I view the current (today=Jan.8th 2004) 
administration as part of a GOP continuum that began a 
drive to certain goals, with several recurring key 
players, beginning for the most part as a real 
movement with the Reagan administration; transitioning 
directly to Bush Sr.--then interrupted for 8 years by 
Clinton--and now, quite conventiently, stewarded by a 
hapless dunce who bears the great Seal on his arse.  


(Do not misinterpret here.  I'm not anti-capitalism or 
anti-american.  I'm anti-Bush and pro-freedom.)


I tried to similarly follow Joel's pattern of cultural 
references alongside political ones, often replacing 
names with names, jocks with jocks, and so forth, so 
that the new song would be like a parallel update of 
the older one.  Sometimes it was spot on, other times 
I had to diverge a bit, but I tried to keep a mix 
going.  


Maybe one of the strangest parallels was the Mickey 
Mantle line.  In the original song, his name appears 
as a reference to 1957, one of his better years 
(MVP).  As it turned out, in my song his name came up 
in the year he died.  Complete coincidence.


Some others include Nixon/Kissinger " is back again", 
bay of pigs invasion/lost another kennedy, JFK blown 
away/911 Terror day (do you remember where you were 
when...?), Iran and Afghanistan, foreign debts/record 
debts, homeless vets/crippled vets (9,000 injured 
military personnel have been airlifted out of Iraq as 
of today).  


The Clinton years were adversarial and frustrating for 
the GOP agenda-pushers, who likely viewed the time 
period as an unwelcome interruption in their chain 
of "leadership".  Their time was spent attacking him 
for his character; meanwhile, GOP sexual and financial 
scandals abounded.  The impeachment trial actually 
took away from the administrations ability to 
completely deal with Saddam and Osama, who were acting 
up at that time.  Where was the GOP resolve against 
terror then?  Instead, they took the low road, and 
look where we are now.


Many of the scandals I mention involve key Republican 
figures who are still in the picture.  Virtually 
everyone got off for Contragate, for example.  Bush 
continues to stock the courts with conservative 
judges, and is even trying to put a system in place 
that will monitor and likely punish federal judges who 
don't follow the party line.  


There's the "boobiegate" scandal with Ashcroft 
covering the statue of justice, and so many other 
items including multiple and CONVENTIENTLY TIMED 
elevations of the terror rainbow that may have helped 
bad legislation get passed for Bush.  He's dismantled 
treaties, squandered international good will, gutted 
environmental protections, imposed prohibitive trade 
rules and taxes, blown the surplus, bloated the 
deficit, and in general just screwed things up.  

I could go on about the details of all these issues, 
but it's much more fun to listen to the song.  


Do your own digging, and get Bush and Big Brother 
Jesus Oil Junta OUT of power in 2004!!