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Irony

“Listen…
There’s another national anthem playing,
Not the one you cheer
At the ball park.”

“We’re the other national anthem, folks,
The ones that can’t get in
To the ball park.”

Available from iTunes, happily enough.

3 Comments

  1. Jeff Dougan Jeff Dougan

    I love Sondheim and Assassins is one of my favorite shows in particular, but the context to that song makes it a little disturbing in light of what happened on Tuesday.

    I haven’t heard the Broadway cast recording, but the Original cast recording is excellent.

    I can provide more information about the show if necessary — is a backgrounder needed?

  2. Nah, I’ve seen it once (missed the recent Broadway production, though, to my sadness), and I’m familiar with it. The multiple levels of irony in Another National Anthem are what get me; at one level, I feel like there is another national anthem playing, and at another level I feel like despair about the election is reflected by the obstinate refusal by the assassins to accept the possibility that they could ever, as it were, enter the ballpark.

  3. Jeff Dougan Jeff Dougan

    That makes me feel a little bit better. When I saw the post, all sorts of “why do you hate America?” bells from the wing-nut faction started going off in my head, and that didn’t seem to be the right case.

    If I hadn’t heard early last week about once real left-wing British newspaper (briefly) condoning the assassination of Shrub, it might have gone unnoticed.

    I live in a safely blue island in an otherwise pretty red area, so I may have gotten a little more sensitive to it in the last 18 months. (NC went about 60/40 or 65/35 to Bush; Durham county was about 75/25 for Kerry.) I have to live near some of these people, after all. 🙂

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