Songs for Inauguration 2025

The Playlist

(on YouTube) # = playlist order

#	Title	Artist	Link	Notes
01	Kiss Me, Son of God	TMBG	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	YouTube	Save us all from tomorrow.
03	Radio Song	REM	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	YouTube	Turn off your mind, let the media float you downstream...
05	Excitable Boy	Warren Zevon	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	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	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	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	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	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	Michael Penn	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	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	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	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."(I originally had "Epitaph" here, but I think that's more of an election day song.)
15	Prophecies	Philip Glass	YouTube	Translation of 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 Wikipedia) All is koyaanisqatsi. (P.S. This is one of the 3 scariest songs I know.)
16	Hjartað hamast (bamm bamm bamm)	Sigur Rós	YouTube	A wordless cry seems super-appropriate.
17	Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys	Traffic	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	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	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	YouTube	"You made a fool of everyone.": a song about a completely different charismatic flim-flam artist, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who claimed to be a simple man of nature but went around in a helicopter.
21	Brave New World	Michael Penn	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	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	YouTube	"The sun shines and people forget. The spray flies as the speedboat glides, and people forget."
24	Gimme Shelter	Rolling Stones	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	YouTube lyrics	In a 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	YouTube 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	YouTube lyrics	I'm sure everything will be fine.
28	Four Minutes	Roger Waters	YouTube	This is possibly the scariest song I know. Sometimes, I feel like going home.
29	Last Days on Earth	Tears for Fears	YouTube lyrics	We have to keep holding on to each other, no matter how bad things look.
30	Still Alive	Jonathan Coulton ft. Ellen McLain	YouTube 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.

• I Will Not Go Quietly (Don Henley) -- official copy n/a on YT, looks intentional
• Captain America (Kinks) 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)