Blog Posts by Bill DeMain

As any songwriter or presidential candidate will tell you, second verses can be a bitch.

Ask Hillary Clinton.

During her 17-month run for the Democratic nomination, she employed seven different campaign songs. And like her campaign itself, each one got off to a rousing start only to run into trouble in the second verse.

There was Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care Of Business," which seemed to match Hillary's can-do spirit. But oddly enough, the second verse reveals that the song is about not taking care of business:

"It's the work that we avoid

And we're all self-employed

We love to work at nothing all day"

There was Dolly Parton's "9 To 5." Peppy, with lyrics about a solid work ethic. But halfway in we get:

"Want to move ahead

But the boss won't seem to let me

I swear sometimes that man is out to get me"

Oops. And on it went, each song booby-trapped with some lyrical snafu.

I don't mean to pick on Hillary. I use her only to exemplify how campaign songs can be message

Dear David,

Last night I was in Target, browsing in Men's Clothing, and to my surprise, I saw your name on the label of a shirt. At first, I thought, "No, it couldn't be . . ." But then I turned over the cardboard tag and there you were, pictured with a designer named Keanan Duffty.

"This collection was inspired by David Bowie, a force that has defined fashion, youth culture and music for five decades," the tag read.

I looked at the shirts, pants and jackets, but to me, they didn't say David Bowie. They said Ryan Seacrest. They said twentysomething guys out with their girlfriends at P.F. Chang's on a Saturday night. In short, they said sleek, stretchy conformity.

David, as one of your devoted lifelong fans, I have to ask, "What happened?"

I grew up in the '70s, when you stood at the forefront of fashion. No, you were bigger than fashion. You blazed trails. You turned trends on their head. That lightning bolt streaking across your face on Aladdin Sane was like an electric current

Remember the old Monty Python sketch about "the funniest joke in the world?" Anyone who heard it died laughing. Change the joke to a song and you've got "Gloomy Sunday." Written in 1933 by Reszo Seress (pictured) and Laszlo Javor, this beautifully spooky dirge--nicknamed "the Hungarian suicide song"--killed not with fatal hilarity but a funereal sadness that seeped into the souls of hundreds of susceptible listeners. Like the teenage girl in Vienna who drowned herself while clutching the sheet music of the song. Or the Budapest shopkeeper who hanged himself and left a note that quoted from the lyrics. Or the London woman who overdosed while listening repeatedly to a recording of the song.

Of course, this might all be urban legend. One thing's for sure, though. "Gloomy Sunday"'s composer took his life. But that was later. In 1933, Seress was a struggling songwriter living in Paris. The story goes that after his fiancée dumped him, he went to the piano and out flowed this minor-key