View source for Songs for Inauguration 2025

[[category:song list]]
==The Playlist==
([https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDnKvkuMrqYgr3cadiEDKAsv03oKWVFW2 on YouTube])
<code>#</code> = playlist order
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! # || Title || Artist || Link || Notes
|-
| 01 || Kiss Me, Son of God || TMBG || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqOSPm2UdRs YouTube] || Sort of obvious, and a bit of a musical outlier from the rest of the list, but it's quick ;-)
|-
| 02 || Ship of Fools || World Party || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Ou9o-E4LA YouTube] || Save us all from tomorrow.
|-
| 03 || Radio Song || REM || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XhYEqz2Hu8 YouTube] || Thought of this because of the first line, then thought "wait no, this doesn't really work; it's about a relationship breaking up" -- but now I'm thinking you can see it as being about how things fall apart when people can't communicate, and how the media ("the radio") seduces, distracts, and confuses things even further.
|-
| 04 || Tomorrow Never Knows || Beatles || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4BuziKGMy4 YouTube] || Turn off your mind, let the media float you downstream...
|-
| 05 || Excitable Boy || Warren Zevon || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZokPAuhD6k YouTube] || It's perfectly normal to have a rapist felon for President. Nothing to see here; he's just an excitable boy. Oligarchs will be oligarchs.
|-
| 06 || What I Can Do for You || Sheryl Crow || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxjl3ejBYwA YouTube] || You've probably heard some awful things about him, but he's gonna take care of everything! Just ask anybody, they'll tell you that it's true. (We call this "the gaslighting song", here at Hypertwin Manor.)
|-
| 07 || The Idol || Procol Harum || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR7Jrb4XQd4 YouTube] || "They knew that only he could pull them through / They thought that he would make a plan / He'd work it out, he'd understand / Like drowning men they clutched at every straw" The people described in this song at least ''realize'' that they've been had; still waiting for that realization to hit our real-life idol's followers...
|-
| 08 || Into the Frying Pan || King Crimson || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWV_Y0g3j0 YouTube] || "I was just now thinking about the jaws of life that chew you up, and spit you right back into the frying pan." "You think you're fine, but then..."
|-
| 09 || Ball of Confusion || Temptations || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HjUxggPd6E YouTube] || "Vote for me, and I'll set you free!" "...and the band played on." (Some of the details given are out of step with today's facts, but the point remains.)
|-
| 10 || Long Dark Night || Fabulous Knobs || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65lljPfGTY YouTube] || "You're lying under darker shadows, you're stretching truth across the floor." It's gonna be a long, dark night.
|-
| 11 || Out of My Hands<ref name=yterr /> || Michael Penn || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk_sNlFeR5E YouTube] || "When every conclusion reached is out to you... I put on my best face and my kid gloves, too, and held up the end until it's out of my hands." We never were their assassins, nothing up our sleeves... but they keep on finding us harder to believe.
|-
| 12 || Then the Morning Comes || Smashmouth || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB9JJIoAdYM YouTube] || "You're gonna do it again." "It's just the way you talk, like it ain't nothing -- and every single day is just a fling..." They voted for the entertainer. AGAIN. (see also: Ronald Reagan) It's just the way that they are.
|-
| 13 || May Be a Price to Pay || Alan Parsons || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz1Ih2gBbfU YouTube] || "There's evil brewing, getting out of control -- and I'm helpless, I can't put it right."
|-
| 14 || In the Wake of Poseidon || King Crimson || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-bsa44Hy30 YouTube] || "Air, fire, earth and water - balance of change - world on the scales" ...then everything changed when the White Nation attacked. "Whilst in the aisle, the mad man smiles -- to him it matters least." "Magi, blind with vision's light, net death in dread of life."<small>(I originally had "Epitaph" here, but I think that's more of an election day song.)</small>
|-
| 15 || Prophecies || Philip Glass || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdmYO_VKOU YouTube]<ref name=pglass /> || Translation of [https://genius.com/Philip-glass-prophecies-lyrics Hopi lyrics]: "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster. Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans." (see {{l/wp|Koyaanisqatsi|Wikipedia}}) All is koyaanisqatsi. (P.S. This is one of the 3 scariest songs I know.)
|-
| 16 || Hjarta&eth; hamast (bamm bamm bamm) || Sigur R&oacute;s || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uID1eJFYws YouTube] || A [[wikipedia:Sigur_Rós#Vonlenska|wordless]] cry seems super-appropriate.
|-
| 17 || Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys || Traffic || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDGorIWYz-A YouTube] || "The percentage you're paying is too high... and the man in the suit has just bought a new car* from the profit he's made on your dreams." (* This was the 1970s, so it was just new cars. It was only later that they moved on to yachts, rocket flights, and social media platforms.)
|-
| 18 || Rock Me on the Water || Jackson Browne || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbhO68-P2Wg YouTube] || "Oh people, look among you." ... "You've left it for somebody other than you to be the one to care."
|-
| 19 || Getting to the Point || ELO || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSbvZMLJjeU YouTube] || "It's out of control, and there's nothing I can do now." "It's getting to the point: where nobody can stop it now, the point of no return. And all that I can do is stand and watch it now -- watch it burn, burn, burn. It's getting to the point where reasons are forgotten; it's getting to the point where no one knows."
|-
| 20 || Sexy Sadie || Beatles || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5DMdnf9me0 YouTube] || "You made a fool of everyone.": a song about a completely ''different'' charismatic flim-flam artist, {{l/wp|Maharishi Mahesh Yogi}}, who claimed to be a simple man of nature but went around in a helicopter.
|-
| 21 || Brave New World || Michael Penn || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jDbpwNo5k4 YouTube] || "Please don't hit me if I do say -- this ain't no golden age. [...] Let's drive into the brave new world."
|-
| 22 || Utopia || Goldfrapp || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OC6683nPbw YouTube] || "It's a strange day [...] I forget who I am when I'm with you. There's no reason, there's no sense. I'm not supposed to feel; I forget who I am. Fascist baby..."
|-
| 23 || Eminence Front || Who || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfrUQA2tb6M YouTube] || "The sun shines and people forget. The spray flies as the speedboat glides, and people forget."
|-
| 24 || Gimme Shelter || Rolling Stones || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeglgSWKSIY YouTube] || I hadn't even realized many of the ways this song is appropriate for right now. "A storm is threatening my very life today." "the fire is sweeping our very streets today. Burns like a red-coal carpet; mad bull, lost your way." "... a flood is threatening..." "Rape, murder, yeah, it's just a shot away."
|-
| 25 || Redemption Day || Sheryl Crow || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkLoQQYcCJc YouTube] [https://genius.com/Sheryl-crow-redemption-day-lyrics lyrics] || In a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua4bW1Z8d9M recent interview], Sheryl talks about visiting war-torn Bosnia in the 1990s, and how the media would only talk about Rwanda (which was then undergoing a genocide), and wondering who made that decision and why. "What do you have for us today? Throw us a bone but save the plate on why we waited 'til so late. Was there no oil to excavate? No riches in trade for the fate of every person who died in hate. Throw us a bone, you men of great."
|-
| 26 || Land of Confusion || Genesis cover by Katzenjammer || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaSSMQVybzE YouTube] [https://genius.com/Katzenjammer-land-of-confusion-lyrics lyrics] || Phil Collins's generation, sadly, did ''not'' put it right. So here we are again/still. We need to make this a place worth living in.
|-
| 27 || Time After Time || ELO || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtB9kNQaRa8 YouTube] [https://genius.com/Electric-light-orchestra-time-after-time-lyrics lyrics] || I'm sure everything will be fine.
|-
| 28 || Four Minutes || Roger Waters || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzdwpisprYQ YouTube] || This is possibly ''the'' scariest song I know. ''Sometimes, I feel like going home.''
|-
| 29 || Last Days on Earth || Tears for Fears || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsJFRf6av3M YouTube] [https://genius.com/Tears-for-fears-last-days-on-earth-lyrics lyrics] || We have to keep holding on to each other, no matter how bad things look.
|-
| 30 || Still Alive || Jonathan Coulton ft. Ellen McLain || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXRteMSSZ14 YouTube] [https://genius.com/Jonathan-coulton-still-alive-lyrics lyrics] || You can't ever just put on your flight suit and say you've won the fight against evil; it's always still alive, waiting for another chance. I feel like a lot of people thought we'd won in 2008, but a lot of other people knew better. We have to rewrite our systems so assholes don't get a head start and special favors.
|}
To Add:
==not used==
I would have liked to include these, but they didn't fit for various reasons.
* <s>I Will Not Go Quietly (Don Henley)</s> -- official copy n/a on YT, looks intentional
* <s>Captain America (Kinks)</s> paints US as unironically good - definitely not the right context here
* Crime of the Century (Supertramp) -- too long for the message
* Save a Prayer (Duran Duran) - lyrics don't quite work
* Palace of Versailles (Al Stewart) - not quite the right historical parallel
* Swords and Knives (TFF) - not quite right either, though the mood is...
* In the Flesh / Run Like Hell / Waiting for the Worms / Stop (Pink Floyd) - I would have had to re-upload a combined version in order not to have this broken up...
* Ignoreland (REM)
* Is It Like Today (World Party)
* Mad World
* For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
==Footnote==
<references>
<ref name=yterr>YouTube has this incorrectly titled as "Out of My Hand" (singular), and there's no way to edit it.</ref>
<ref name=pglass>I chose this unofficial upload instead of the [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjyqg97lj3w official one] because it was the only one I could find with the longer/full version from the movie, which is much superior to the one on the LP and the first CD release. A later CD release took advantage of the CD media's greater capacity to include full versions of some songs that had been shortened (like this one) and at least one song that had been left out entirely.</ref>
</references>