Ronald Reagan In Music

The appearance of Ronald Reagan in music includes mentions and depictions of the actor-turned-politician in songs, albums, music videos, and band names, particularly during his two terms as President of the United States. Reagan first appeared on a few album covers during his time as a Hollywood actor, well before his political career. During the 1960s, folk, rock, and satirical musicians critiqued Reagan in his early years as Governor of California for red-baiting and attacks on Berkeley's so-called Free Speech Movement. In the 1980s songs critiquing Reagan became more widespread and numerous once he ascended to national office and involved himself in the renewal of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, social conservatism, right-wing evangelicalism, and his economic policies in relation to low-income people. While references to Reagan during his presidency appear in pop music, his presence in song lyrics and on album covers is often associated with the hardcore punk counter-culture of the 1980s.

The 1980s' surge in political songs about a current president marked a shift in the culture and helped define the soundscape of the decade, partly fueled by Reagan's attack on aspects of culture associated with rock and roll, namely sex, drugs, and left-leaning politics. While presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon had been the subject of protest songs and politically satirical music during both the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were mentioned only occasionally by songwriters in the 1970s. That changed with Reagan's presidency, which brought on echoes of his prior campaign against counter-cultural activists a generation earlier during his terms as governor of California. The arrival of music television added a visual component to many of these songs, as did numerous album covers that used the president's likeness in their artwork. Artists' access to digital technology and the rise of hip hop also made Reagan the first political figure whose voice was widely sampled in music.

With regards to musical taste, Reagan himself was a proponent of standards from Hollywood musicals and the Great American Songbook, running three campaigns to the tune of " California Here I Come". As a social conservative, he and his administration were sometimes at odds with the lifestyles and politics of popular musicians, and Reagan's time as president was marked by various miscommunications involving The Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, and others. Reagan's longevity as a public figure, and the legacy of music written about him, has driven musicians to continue making comment on Reagan well after his political career.

Pre-presidency

While Ronald Reagan began involving himself in politics in the late 1950s and early 1960s, other cultural and political shifts in the United States coalesced to create a surge in protest music. Waves of African-Americans moving from the Southern United States to urban centers in the North, Midwest, and West during and after World War II helped to electrify the blues and hastened the evolution of rock and roll. A post-war baby boom meant that a large segment of the population was entering their teens at the start of 1960s and became the de facto audience for this new music. Simultaneously the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War fueled folk singers like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs to write and record numerous topical songs that reached a large fanbase of primarily young people. While President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of US involvement in Vietnam was met with increased protests, Reagan began his campaign for Governor of California. Phil Ochs mentioned both Johnson and Reagan on his 1966 album, ''Phil Ochs in Concert.'' In his introduction to "Ringing of Revolution", Ochs sets up the song by speculating on a future where the last of the bourgeoisie are besieged in a mansion atop a hill. Ochs imagines a film based on his own lyrics:

It stars Senator Carl Hayden as Ho Chi Minh,
Frank Sinatra plays Fidel Castro,
Ronald Reagan plays George Murphy
and John Wayne plays Lyndon Johnson.
And Lyndon Johnson plays God.Ochs, Phil. 1966. "Ringing of Revolution" (sound recording). In ''Phil Ochs in Concert''. Elektra Records.

Ochs interchanges actors and politicians and pokes fun at Reagan for following in George Murphy's footsteps: Murphy, like Reagan, had been a film actor and became president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), then went on to be a Republican US Senator for the state of California. Reagan had succeeded Murphy as SAG president where he worked as an informant for the FBI during the Hollywood blacklist period. Two decades later, Reagan also ran for office and became California's governor.

Tom Lehrer made a similar comparison in his song "George Murphy", which opens:

Hollywood's often tried to mix
Show-business with politics,
From Helen Gahagan
To Ronald Reagan.

Helen Gahagan was also an entertainer turned politician, progressing from Broadway to US Congress until Richard Nixon unseated her after claims that Gahagan was "pink down to her underwear". In Lehrer's song on his 1965 live album, he punctuates Reagan's name with a question mark, evoking a laugh from an audience who did not yet know that Reagan would sweep the gubernatorial election the following year. In a similar vein to Lehrer was Borscht Belt entertainer Allan Sherman, who satirized Reagan's governorship on his 1967 song, "There's No Governor Like Our New Governor," set to the tune of "There's No Business Like Show Business."

In 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival mentioned Reagan in their science fiction-inspired song " It Came Out of the Sky" in which a flying saucer landing in the US Midwest spirals into a commercial and political fiasco. In his lyrics CCR frontman John Fogerty imagines how different sectors of the establishment would respond, with Hollywood turning the event into an epic film, The Vatican declaring it as Christ's return, then-vice president Spiro Agnew proposing a tariff on all things Martian, and Governor Reagan suspecting a communist conspiracy. Fogerty wrote about his inspiration for the song's spectacle and its Reagan reference in his 2015 memoir, saying, "Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid are in there, big newscasters at the time. And Ronald Reagan—I call him Ronnie the Popular."

At Woodstock in 1969 Jeffrey Shurtleff dedicated his and Joan Baez's performance of "Drug Store Truck Driving Man" to "Ronald Reagunz".

In 1970 Jefferson Starship referred to Reagan's policies and attitudes as governor in the song "Mau Mau (Amerikon)" on their debut album ''Blows Against the Empire''. In the song vocalist Paul Kantner recants, "the dogs of a grade-B movie star governor's war" in reference to the previous year's actions taken against students at the University of California, Berkeley to create a People's Park as part of the political counterculture of the 1960s. Governor Reagan's Chief of Staff, Edwin Meese, had ordered the Alameda County Sheriff to fire upon the crowds with buckshot, resulting in the death of one student and the hospitalization of 128 others.
These directives had come from Reagan himself, who had been publicly critical of UC Berkeley administrators for tolerating student demonstrations. In his 1966 gubernatorial campaign he had promised to crack down on what he called "a haven for communist sympathizers, protesters, and sex deviants" on the Berkeley campus.

In their song, Jefferson Starship countered Reagan's social conservatism with the line, "We'll ball in your parks".

During Reagan's presidency

Novelty records

While Presidents Johnson and Nixon had come under lyrical fire from songwriters for the role they played in waging war both in Vietnam and against protesters in the US, songs about presidents Ford and Carter were scant in comparison. Exceptions include James Brown's single "Funky President" (1974);Brown, James, with Bruce Tucker. ''James Brown: The Godfather of Soul'' (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986), 242. "Please, Mr. President" (1975), recorded by 10-year-old Paula Webb; Devo's hit " Whip It" (1980); and a handful of novelty records, first spoofing the Ford/Carter presidential debates and later the 1970s energy and Iran hostage crises during Carter's presidency.

In 1980, producer Dickie Goodman spoofed the Carter/Reagan debates on his "Election 80" single, which used Goodman's then-popular "break-in" or "flying saucer" technique that interspersed bits of dialogue, written and recorded by Goodman, with snippets of popular songs. Goodman would go on to satirize Reagan on his follow-ups, "Mr, President," "America 81," "Washington In-Side-Out," "Election '84" and "Safe Sex Report" throughout Reagan's presidency.

While Goodman's novelty records dug more at current events and the political process than at the president himself, Reagan's return to major political office ushered in his renewed campaign against things often associated with the rock-and-roll lifestyle: promiscuous sex, illicit drugs, and left-wing politics. As had happened in the 1960s, these attitudes, along with Reagan's domestic and foreign policies, designated Reagan as a prime target for a new generation of protest music.

Pop music

1981

After Reagan's election as U.S. president in 1980, many pop music artists responded in their song lyrics. In 1981, " (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" by British synth-poppers Heaven 17 slammed U.K. prime minister Margaret Thatcher along with Reagan, denouncing the leaders' policies as tending toward racism and fascism. The song was banned by the BBC
...