I usually try to avoid politics in most of my online communications, for various reasons.  Make no mistake, politics is very much a vital and important part of my life, but I strongly prefer not to discuss on the Internet.  And so it is with some reluctance that I am even writing this post.  But perhaps I should back up a little: this is a post about music.

On Sunday morning, I was driving to the office to pick up some things I had forgotten, when I flipped on NPR to hear the introduction to the presidential inauguration celebration concert, We Are One.  The introduction was led by a plain-voiced disc jockey who had an excellent script, but what struck me was the content: Barack Obama’s ten favorite songs.

1. ‘Ready or Not’ Fugees
2. ‘What’s Going On’ Marvin Gaye
3. ‘I’m On Fire’ Bruce Springsteen
4. ‘Gimme Shelter’ Rolling Stones
5. ‘Sinnerman’ Nina Simone
6. ‘Touch the Sky’ Kanye West
7. ‘You’d Be So Easy to Love’ Frank Sinatra
8. ‘Think’ Aretha Franklin
9. ‘City of Blinding Lights’ U2
10. ‘Yes We Can’ Will.i.am

Now I’ve never actually met Barack Obama, and I can hardly claim to know his musical taste, but I’m fairly certain that this list is not literally his ten favorite songs.  Indeed several of these songs played very important roles in his campaign.  ‘City of Blinding Lights’ was played as Obama took the stage at the Democratic National Convention a year ago, and Will.i.am’s YouTube megahit ‘Yes We Can’ stands as one of the finest examples of Obama’s viral and online campaign strategy.  Some of the songs here are just plain puzzling; ‘You’d Be So Easy To Love’ might be a great song, but I have a real hard time picturing Mr. Obama singing along to it.

None of those songs struck me the way ‘Ready or Not’ did.  Driving down Slauson, I literally broke down in tears.  I had to pull my car over to prevent an accident.  And I’m not exaggerating.

How could a song like ‘Ready or Not’ – a hit from my high school days, back before Wyclef sold out and Lauryn Hill dropped off the planet – possibly have this effect on me?  The song was released in 1996, just as Clinton was being elected for a second term.  The lyrics are, well, for lack of a better term, gangsta…

Now that I escape, sleepwalker awake
Those who could relate know the world ain’t cake
Jail bars ain’t golden gates
Those who fake, they break,
When they meet their 400 pound mate
If I could rule the world
Everyone would have a gun in the ghetto of course
When giddyupin’ on their horse
I Kick a rhyme drinkin’ moonshine
I pour a sip on the concrete, for the deceased
But no don’t weep, Wyclef’s in a state of sleep
Thinkin’ ’bout the robbery that I did last week.
Money in the bag, banker looked like a drag
I want to play with pelicans from here to Baghdad
Gun blast, think fast, I think I’m hit
My girl pinched my hips to see if I still exist.
I think not, I’ll send a letter to my friends,
A born again hooligan only to be king again.

How is it that this song was chosen as one of Barack Obama’s top ten favorite songs?  What staffer allowed NPR to tell the world that a song about ghetto violence ranked among our new president’s sing-alongs like ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ‘Touch the Sky?’

The answer is simple, and powerful: we have a black president.

Let me tell you just how proud I am of this.  I didn’t break down in tears of rage, but tears of absolute pride.  For the first time in the history of this country, we finally have a government bold enough to connect with the culture that makes us American.  It isn’t about race or poverty or politics, it’s about the shared experiences that make us who we are and the art that ties it all together and speaks volumes to the real identity of our nation and its people.

‘What’s Goin’ On?’ is one of the preiminent protest songs of a generation.  It is, without a doubt, the most powerful statement against the Vietnam war put to music.  And here, an American president has admitted its importance in his life (it’s OK, Barack, your iPod thanks you, and so do we).  And alongside Marvin are tunes by Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin, songs of redemption and love and God and the imperfections of human beings.

I applaud you, Mr. President, for acknowledging the culture of America, unabashedly and unashamedly, multicultural as it is.

And so I leave you with my own sentiments, as expressed by the great Sam Cooke (after all, great songs should speak through you).  Indeed, it has been an awful long time comin’.

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