I watched a show on Australian televison this week and heard the song, Dear Mr. President, by the artist Pink for the first time. It is a powerful song that ask the current US President some fundemental questions. He will probably never answer them, and luckily his term is soon up, but I believe its good that artists get involved in the important questions in the way that Pink did.
Some more information about the song from Wikipedia: “Dear Mr. President” is a song by Pink featuring the Indigo Girls, and was recorded for Pink’s fourth album, I’m Not Dead. Pink said that the song is an open letter to the President of the United States, George W. Bush, and that it is one of the most important songs she had written. She stated that it would never be released as a single because it was too important to be perceived as a publicity stunt. It has since been released in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the UK. The video of her performance live from Wembley Arena has also been added to the VH1 line-up of videos.
The song was written by Pink and Billymann. Pink came up with the idea to ask the Indigo Girls to join the recording of the song. According to an interview, they “believe in the song. An open letter to the president, that’s what we needed.” During an interview with an Australian radio station, the Australian girl group Young Divas asked Pink what she was thinking when she wrote “Dear Mr. President”. Pink stated that she wrote the song on Martin Luther King Day in 2005. “I read The New York Times every day, and watch the news. And I was completely disgusted with it. I just felt like….I just needed to write a song.”
When I’m Not Dead was released on April 5, 2006, “Dear Mr. President” attracted considerable attention. Most of the discussion concerned Pink’s statement that the song was intended for United States President George W. Bush. The song’s format is a series of questions for the President, specifically pertaining to how he really feels about controversial issues such as war (“Let me tell you about hard work/Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away”), homosexuality (“What kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?”) –this can also be viewed as Vice President Dick Cheney not accepting gay rights when his own daughter is gay,– The homeless (“What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street”), the Patriot Act (“What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away?”) and drug abuse (“You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine”), and asks “when you look in the mirror are you proud?”.
In an interview with MTV News Pink stated she hoped Bush heard the song and that “[he] is proud of the fact that we live in a country where we can do things like that, where we can have dissent, talk, communicate and share our opinions.”
(Beware that I wrote this post in May 2008, and that it has been moved to my new blog at a later stage)
“Dear Mr. President”
(feat. Indigo Girls)
Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let’s pretend we’re just two people and
You’re not better than me.
I’d like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.
What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?
Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say
No child is left behind?
We’re not dumb and we’re not blind.
They’re all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell.
What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye?
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you ’bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don’t know nothing ’bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh
How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You’d never take a walk with me.
Would you?
Text source: Wikipedia.com
