American Woman, Listen What I Say

Donald Trump's entry into the U.S. presidential race has attracted quite a bit of attention.  There were a lot of complaints about the rally in which he introduced his candidacy, mostly his bizarre and insulting remarks about Mexicans.  But one of the more predictable reactions was that Neil Young didn't appreciate Trump's use of Keep On Rocking In the Free World.

Of course, that was obvious.  I mentioned before that conservative politicians have to get used to a limited selection of artists who will allow the use of their songs.  At this point, I'm assuming they're betting on the no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity concept.  Although in Trump's fault, I'm betting he just didn't care.  He certainly didn't care that the song was a criticism of the conservative American politics of the eighties.

What's weird is that at the same time, Nike is running ads in the U.S. promoting the Women's World Cup.  And the featured music?  American Woman by the Guess Who.  I'd assume that in this case, the necessary permissions were granted, but the bigger question is, has anyone listened to the lyrics?  The song is quite anti-American, using the titular character as a symbol of a seductive but dangerous culture.

Of course, misunderstanding songs is hardly new - here's a list, and here's another example. But in the two songs I've documented here, the similarity is not just that they are inappropriate, but in both cases people were looking for pro-American songs, and somehow used anti-American songs, by Canadians.  Somehow that represents our national personalities perfectly: we're so obsessed with them that we write songs about them, and then they don't listen to what we actually sing.