TWO POLITICAL PARODY SONGS ON SOUNDCLOUD
My latest is “It’s My Party,” written in August 2018, and I’ve also uploaded “The Wreck of the Ryan-McConnell,” from the summer of 2017. Many thanks to Lesley Gore and Gordon Lightfoot, whose classic songs provided an outlet for my wonkish outrage. Below are the Soundcloud links and a copy of the each lyric. 
My Soundcloud User ID is https://soundcloud.com/user-698601894
It’s My Party:
The Wreck of the Ryan-McConnell:
IT’S MY PARTY
(1963, By Wiener, Gould and Gluck; additional words by Jim Novak, 2018; jimnovakmusic@gmail.com)
In The New Yorker magazine, August 16, 2018: “Trump’s Grip on the Republican Party Just Got Even Tighter,” by John Cassidy.
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
Nobody knows where the GOP’s gone, but Republicans get I’m the King
They wear my red MAGA hats, and kiss my ass and my ring.
GOP voters are solid for me, never a peep or a doubt
Congress’ oversight, man what a joke, minority Dems got no clout!
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
Working class white people voted for me, they still think I’m on their side,
Health care, tax breaks, all that I pledged, they just don’t get that I lied!
GOP candidates, best get this straight: Russia’s my friend, not the Press,
White supremacists, go ‘head and hate: you domestic terrorists (“fine people”).
It’s my Party and I’ll act like I want to, distract if I want to, change facts if I
want to, You would lie too if you knew what I knew
OK so what if I break a few norms, and I’m shameless about getting laid,
I bully with morning tweet storms , and shit on the CIA!
I punish enemies, Payback is sweet, and Emoluments are no prob,
Money laundering, shadowy deals, I’m like the Boss of this Mob!
It’s my Party, I’ll collude if I want to, talk crude if I want to, screw you if I want to,
You’d cover up too, if you knew what I knew.
Subpoena my records, I’ll just dance away, & call the whole thing Fake News
Mueller’s Witch Hunt, & my D.O.J. (are) G-Men I love to abuse!
Vlad, the Russkies and Porn Movie Stars, I pick my friends from the Best,
Swamp Pirates Scott, Paul and Chris, DC’s our Treasure Chest!
It’s my Party and I’ll troll if I want to, control who I want to, burn coal if I want to,
You would lie too if you knew what I knew
Tax cheating, campaign laws, who gives a crap, I conspire with friends to make fraud,
So unfair now to come after me, but Fox News treats me like God!
Casual racism, dog whistles too, then I claim Whites are oppressed,
Evangelicals boy they love me: my greed and adulteries are blessed!
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
RECITATIVE:
I’ll end regulations and Roe versus Wade, stoke resentment against immigrants;
More court justices, more nutty tweets — You really want Mike Pence??!!
“Resistance” is futile, my voters don’t care I’m disruptive, unstable, bizarre,
“Unhinged” and orange, I swear, they tell me, We love how you are!
It’s my Party and I’ll lie if I want to, lie if I want to, lie if I want to
You would lie too if you knew what I knew.
The Wreck of the Ryan-McConnell (Lyric by Jim Novak, jimnovakmusic@gmail.com; from the song by Gordon Lightfoot)
From Politico, July 28, 2017: “At a closed-door conference meeting with House Republicans hours after Sen. John McCain scuttled perhaps the last best hope of repealing Obamacare, Ryan read an excerpt from ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,’ a song about sailors drowning in a 1975 shipwreck. He likened the tune to what he deemed the Senate’s tragic failure to repeal Obamacare.”
1.
The law was signed in Obama’s time,
For health-care reform and expansion.
Affordable care with a free-market share,
It helps 24 million and then some…
A Conservative thing but Dems gave it wing,
No one was ever Death-Paneled.
Republican jerks said the law’d never work,
With their lawsuits and bills to dismantle!
2.
The Law of the Land the GOP could not stand,
Voting 50-plus times to repeal it.
Folks were so scared, the GOP did not care,
They’d take your coverage and steal it…
Medicaid and markets, for all the insured,
The goal was for all to be healthy.
The cost wouldn’t bust us, it’s pure social justice,
But the Right wanted more for the wealthy!
3.
Trump was elected, Hillary rejected,
Republicans took over Congress.
The House bill in May got Paul Ryan’s OK,
It was callous enough to astonish…
Costs out of pocket were sure to sky-rocket
For those who were poorer and older,
Mandates were gone and the tax breaks were strong
But if you’re not rich you’re cold-shouldered!
4.
The Senate’s bill was a similar pill,
As 13 old men worked in secret.
McConnell was nasty, but couldn’t get it passed, he
Had Trump’s help but he is a nit-wit…
Calls and e-mails on a massive scale,
At Town Halls, alarms were sounded.
Til McCain’s thumb went down and the GOP drowned,
And the Ryan-McConnell was grounded!
5.
If they can’t dislodge it, won’t Trump sabotage it,
By dropping the insurer payments,
Discouraging consumers, fomenting false rumors,
And kill it with all such betrayments…
The coverage to be lost and the premiums’ cost
And subsidies they’d just as soon kill,
There’s no compromise, there’s still blood in their eyes,
Where’s the Wreck of the Ryan-McConnell?
6.
With things so unsettling, some people are betting
That Ryan-McConnell ain’t over.
Til a mid-term election and mid-course correction,
One day, the Dem’s will take over…
Then we might mend it rather than end it,
And do as the law was intended.
Good folks should be able to make markets stable,
And Ryan-McConnell upended!
7.
And let’s say one prayer for single-payer,
For fair-minded ways of wealth-sharing.
We’re all common stock, so let’s sit down and talk
Not Repeal-Replace, but Repairing!
The law that was signed in Obama’s time
For health care reform and expansion,
It’s affordable care with a free-market share,
It helps 24 million and then some!