Romney-Ryan are still having major difficulties finding a hit song, from their iPod playlists, to play at their travelling snake-oil shows, which doesn't belong to a musician that's not deeply offended by Romney-Ryan's right-wingnut politics.
So far Romney-Ryan have been unfriended (i.e., told to cease-and-desist) by Twisted Sister, K'Naan Warsame, Al Green, and Silversun Pickups. It appears as if Romney-Ryan's campaign flunkies have given up making even a token effort to find out in advance whether a composer is going to object. That's classic bully (or pompous rich ass-hat) behavior: do whatever you want and give a half-assed non-apology later.
At the RNC convention 2012 Republican Birtherpalooza, the intro music that played when Ryan took the stage for his acceptance speech was the 80's 1976 hit "The Boys Are Back In Town" by the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy. The song "The Boys Are Back In Town" was composed by the band's leader Philip Lynott.
Lynott died in 1986 so his opinion of Romney-Ryan's music selection isn't known. But when his mom, Philomena Lynott, heard how her son's hit song had been used by Romney-Ryan she publicly objected. In an interview Lynott's mother gave to the Irish music magazine The Hot Press she made clear her strong disapproval of Romney-Ryan's anti-gay (and anti-poor race-baiting) politics. The Hot Press Newsdesk article posted on Sep 3, 2012 quotes Lynott's mom:
"I am really upset at Philip's music being used in Mitt Romney's campaign in a political way that Philip would not have approved of," she told Hot Press. "As far as I am concerned, Mitt Romney's opposition to gay marriage and to civil unions for gays makes him anti-gay – which is not something that Philip would have supported. He had some wonderful gay friends, as indeed I do, and they deserve equal treatment in every respect, whether in Ireland or the United States.
"Neither would Philip have supported his policy of taxing the poor and offering tax cuts to the rich, which Paul Ryan is advocating. There is certainly no way that I would want the Lynott name to be associated with any of those ideas.
"There is nothing I can do about it except express my views," Philomena added, "but I do want to be clear that I would not want Philip's music to be used in any way that could hurt a single person, and this is the effect of what happened with Paul Ryan using and abusing my son's music in that way. A lot of fans and musicians are very angry about it and I can fully understand why.
"There is a black President of America, which to me – as it would have been to Philip, as a proud, black Irishman – is wonderfully symbolic. I have a lot of time for Barack Obama, so to hear 'The Boys Are Back in Town' being appropriated by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in their campaign against him is deeply upsetting."
Not suprisingly, all the Irish news sources are running pieces about this ruckas:
http://www.irishcentral.com/...
http://www.irishtimes.com/...
http://www.independent.ie/...
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...
Clearly, the message from Lynott's Irish fans to Romney-Ryan is, "Pogue mahone!".
Here's my Compleat Playlist of GOP ScofflawsTM. Please let me know if I've missed any.
As of 7-Sep-2012:
- Fox News show vs
R.E.M. ("Losing My Religion")
http://www.atlantamagazine.com/...
http://www.rawstory.com/...
http://remhq.com/...
- Romney-Ryan (2012) vs
Twisted Sister/Dee Snider ("We're Not Gonna Take It")
K'Naan Warsame ("Wavin' Flag")
Al Green ("Let's Stay Together")
Silversun Pickups ("Panic Switch")
Thin Lizzy ("The Boys Are Back In Town")
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
http://www.mtv.com/...
http://www.thestar.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.politico.com/...
http://www.latimes.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.hotpress.com/...
- The Rush Limbaugh Show (2012) vs
Rush ("The Spirit of Radio" and the rest of their catalog)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.tmz.com/...
- Newt Gingrich (2012) vs
Frank Sullivan ("Eye of the Tiger")
Heavy ("How You Like Me Now?")
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.globalmontreal.com/...
http://www.theatlantic.com/...
- Michele Bachmann (2011) vs
Tom Petty ("American Girl")
Katrina and the Waves ("Walking on Sunshine")
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
- Rand Paul (2010) vs
Rush ("The Spirit of Radio", "Tom Sawyer")
http://blogs.wsj.com/...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/...
http://content.usatoday.com/...
http://www.courier-journal.com/...
- Charlie Crist (2010) vs
David Byrne ("Road to Nowhere")
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/...
Crist's official YouTube video apology to David Byrne
- Joe Walsh (2010) vs
Joe Walsh ("Walk Away")
http://www.citmedialaw.org/...
- Marco Rubio (2010) vs
Steve Miller Band ("Take the Money and Run")
http://www.theatlantic.com/...
http://jacksonville.com/...
- Chuck DeVore (2009) vs
Don Henley ("All She Wants to Do is Dance", "The Boys of Summer")
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/...
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/...
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
DeVore's official apology to Don Henley (plus $$$)
- Chris Christie (2009) vs
Monty Python ("It's The Mind" skit)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
- McCain-Palin (2008) vs
Heart ("Barracuda")
Foo Fighters ("My Hero")
Van Halen ("Right Now")
Orleans ("Still The One")
John Mellencamp ("Our Country", "Pink Houses")
Jackson Browne ("Running On Empty")
Gretchen Peters ("Independence Day")
ABBA ("Take a Chance on Me")
Bill Conti ("Theme from Rocky")
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
http://web.archive.org/...
http://www.eyesonobama.com/...
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/...
http://www.reuters.com/...
McCain's official apology to Jackson Browne (plus $$$)
- Eric Cantor (2008) vs
Aerosmith ("Back in the Saddle")
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
- Mike Huckabee (2008) vs
Boston ("More Than a Feeling")
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/...
- Bush-Cheney (2004) vs
Orleans ("Still The One")
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
- Bush (2000) vs
Tom Petty ("I Won't Back Down")
Sting ("Brand New Day")
John Mellencamp ("R.O.C.K. in the USA")
http://www.pophistorydig.com/...
http://www.salon.com/...
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...
- Bob Dole (1996) vs
Isaac Hayes ("Soul Man")
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...
- Bush (1988) vs
Bobby McFerrin ("Don't Worry Be Happy")
http://www.nationalpost.com/...
- Reagan-Bush (1984) vs
Bruce Springsteen ("Born in the U.S.A.")
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
- Goldwater-Miller(1964) vs
David Merrick ("Hello Dolly")
http://books.google.com/...
http://www.time.com/...