'Piously un-disco' ... so why choose Abba as his anthem? Photograph: Kiichiro Sato/AP
Choosing a campaign song is no easy task, especially if you're Republican. Any musician worth their salt just won't be voting for you and, naturally, they'll refuse to have their worthy, liberal (yet often bizarrely nationalist) message tainted by the wrong political one. Which leaves John McCain in a bit of a pickle.
Since Chuck Berry spoilt McCain's plans to hijack Johnny B Goode by praising Barack Obama, he's reverted to a previous, extremely odd choice: Abba's Take a Chance On Me. But even the Swedes are not happy and you can imagine why.
Aside from the fact that McCain was 41 and piously un-disco when the song was released, it just reeks of an ill-fated musical, political and geographical gamble. For a start, the key phrase of the song paints a vote for McCain as some kind of risky bet. Secondly, and most importantly for flag-waving Republican voters, it's not even American. Could it be that no half-decent US band will allow their song to be carefully woven into the campaign of a wholly unsavoury presidential candidate? Let's have a look at the past evidence...
In 1984, ex-fictitious cowboy Ronald Reagan borrowed Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. He thought: super-patriot in tight pants. Springsteen thought: I'm famously democratic. Stop.
1996 hopeful and ex WW2 vet Bob Dole repurposed Sam and Dave's Soul Man to Dole Man. He thought: spiritual hipster and linguistic genius. They thought: vile pun, and its author Isaac Hayes threatened to sue.
In 2000, George W Bush. Bush adopted Billy Ray Cyrus' We The People. He thought: man of the people. We the people thought: demographically challenged.
My suggestion for McCain's presidential campaign? Everlast's controversial-filter eluding The White Boy is Back, taken from the 1998 album, Whitey Ford Sings the Blues. Or maybe that 1997 classic from Robbie William's Life Thru A Lens, Old Before I Die? But we're clutching at straws. Seriously, will anyone soundtrack this man?
