I don't know about you, but I'm saddened by the loss of Keith Olbermann from the airwaves. Whatever your political leanings, you must admit that Keith was a force to be reckoned with, an important counter voice to the behemoth that is the Right Wing Media machine. We had Keith, they have Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck - basically anything on Fox "News." So yes, Keith was sometimes "over the top," but I think he probably felt he had to be to counter all the "over-the-topness" happening on the other side. And I notice none of the Right's most over-the-toppers have been let go by Fox. They seem to like that kind of rhetoric over there.
Anyway, I've been working on some vocoder stuff (a kind of synthesizer that uses a vocal to color the sound), and I decided I would use something Keith said in his last show to use in a vocoder song. The phrase that jumped out at me was this: "Get your dirty government hands off my government-issued Medicare." Keith started a segment with these words, to point out the cognitive dissonance between what the Tea Partiers were saying about the healthcare bill (government-run healthcare is bad), with what they were saying about the government-run healthcare program we know as "Medicare." (Keep your dirty government hands off my Medicare!)
So I lifted that phrase from the show and ran it through the vocoder, added a beat, wrote a little verse, and voila! A little mini-dance hit. And my songwriting comrades liked it so much, I'll be developing it into a full-length dance song. I hope you enjoy it too.
This is in honor of Keith Olbermann. Keith, we will miss you terribly. You were an outspoken ally in a world that has gone slightly mad. Keep the faith, thanks for the vocal, and I hope to see you back on the air somewhere soon.
Click here to listen to the Tea Party Rumble.
Click here for a great article comparing Keith with Fox News commentators.
