Car maker, industrialist, and noted anti-semite Henry Ford hated the jazz music that was popular in the late teens and twenties. And like most things he hated he figured jazz’s popularity was due to a Jewish conspiracy. Ford’s paper, The Dearborn Independent, printed weekly anti-Jewish essays for 91 straight weeks. Those essays were popular in Germany in the 1930s which is not a ringing endorsement of one’s values.
Two of those essays centered on jazz music and how it was immoral, corrupting “moron music” that was being forced on American by Jewish song trusts out to make money and ruin the country from within.
So to make fun of Ford for this insane belief—and to remind everyone what a jerk he was about it—I wrote him a 1920s-style jazz song. Enjoy!
Since the release of The American Songbook: Redacted studio album back in October I’ve been working on videos for the songs, with the goal of eventually putting them together with introductions and wraparound material from the live show for a complete visual album. In the meantime I thought, ”wouldn’t it be great if there were a place where all the released videos were nicely organized so people could easily enjoy them?”
So I did that! It’s right here! I’ll add to this post as new videos come out. Enjoy!
Beep! Beep! Outta the Way!
Henry Ford, the car guy, was so revered that he offered his opinions on subjects outside of the auto industry. To that end, he bought the Dearborn Independent to disseminate his views, including his hatred of the new popular music “jazz” that the kids were listening and dancing to. And like everything Henry Ford hated, he blamed it on Jewish people.
So, to make fun of him for his dislike of jazz, and to remind everyone what a dick he was about it, I wrote him this jazz song. Enjoy!
Plug Your Ears and Sing!
Stephen Foster was one of America’s first songwriting superstars, and a lot of his songs were written for the minstrel shows of the 1850s, since they were the predominant form of popular entertainment in the 19th Century. We don’t learn much about that history, or the history of racism in the U.S., and with several states enacting laws banning the teaching of divisive concepts, we’re ensuring that the next generation will learn even less.
So that’s what I wrote my Foster-style song about: people being so uncomfortable with history they’d rather it not be taught at all. Some people would prefer you just Plug Your Ears and Sing!
The Ballad of Lou Pearlman
Fraudsters and con artists are as ingrained in U.S. history as robber barons, pioneers, inventors, and innovators. In a country that celebrates outside-the-box thinkers, sometimes people think outside the box of what’s legal. They’re the flipside of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet (more about Henry Ford soon).
So when it came time to pick an American fraudster to profile in The American Songbook: Redacted (let’s do AS:R from here on out) I had plenty to choose from. Madoff? Boring. Ponzi? Fascinating! But there was one guy who did something with the money he conned that no one else did. He gave us boybands!
Behold, The Ballad of Lou Pearlman!
Corporations Are People Too!
I wanted to make sure there was at least one really peppy, uplifting number in AS:R so I took inspiration from some of the sunshine pop of the 60s and 70s, songs like Age of Aquarius, Up With People, Kids are People Too! Subject-wise I wanted to tackle a concept that has long fascinated and aggravated me: corporate personhood.
With the help of my good friend Dan Pavelich, who did the amazing illustrations and character design, I came up with this bubbly, overly-optimistic tune Corporations Are People Too!
The Invisible Hand
In addition to history I wanted to examine some fundamental myths we have as a culture, and one of the big ones for us is that the free market will create the best of all possible worlds. From Reagan to tech-bro libertarians there is an unquestioned (and unprovable) belief that letting everyone pursue their own self interest will result in an efficient and just distribution of resources.
This concept is summed up in Scottish philosopher Adam Smith’s metaphor of “the invisible hand.” As in: the market will be guided as if by an invisible hand to the best possible outcomes.
To me “the invisible hand” sounds less like a metaphor for capitalism and more like a villainous organization in a James Bond movie, so I decided to write a James Bond-style movie theme on the subject. I’m incredibly proud of the arrangement I did for the song on the album and absolutely blown away by the visuals my friends Peggy & Steve put together for the video.
Cue voiceover by Don LaFontaine: “In a world where events are controlled by an unseeable force, one man… must fight… to make fun of it all…”
The Invisible Hand
The Great Disappointment of 1844
The end of the world, specifically people interpreting the Book of Revelation to try to predict it, is an idea deeply embedded in the American psyche, and I don’t think we truly appreciate how much it informs a lot of people’s worldview. Growing up my dad watched a lot of evangelical Christian shows and read a lot of books like The Late Great Planet Earth, that tied current events to various Bible prophesies.
Everyone who’s ever predicted the end of the world has one thing in common: they’ve all been wrong. Including the time in 1844 when so many people were convinced the world was going to end within the year that when it didn’t it was called The Great Disappointment.
And since “Great Disappointment” makes a great title for an emo song, not to mention that waiting for a Second Coming has the angsty teen vibes of waiting for your parents to pick you up a the movies, I wrote an emo song about it.
The Great Disappointment of 1844
The People That Were Already Here
Another concept that looms large in the American personality is the Frontier Myth, the idea that America is an open land of opportunity where rugged individuals will succeed if they are strong and have the grit. While that’s a lovely idea it completely overlooks the fact that there were tons of people already living in the American west so it wasn’t exactly wide open, available land.
Stories and songs about cowboys and western adventurers were hugely popular in America, from the river towns of the Midwest to the cities back east. So to examine this myth, and to bump it up against the reality of western expansion, I wrote a western song. I even played a lap steel!
The video came out on a bank holiday in mid-October, now known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and the background picture is one I actually took down in Marfa, Texas!
Please enjoy The People That Were Already Here
Satanic Panic
In the 80s & 90s there was a moral panic in which accusations of ritual satanic abuse got so out of hand people were convicted of crimes on no evidence and entire communities turned against each other. It got thrown into overdrive by a debunked memoir called Michelle Remembers, and fueled by sensationalist coverage everywhere from Geraldo to 60 minutes.
Soon people were looking for the devil everywhere, including in heavy metal music, which makes heavy metal the perfect genre with which to satirize this ridiculousness.
It’s a subject that needs to be ridiculed because people are still throwing accusations of devils and demons today (I’m looking at you Lauren Boebert,) so I implore you no to forget the Satanic Panic
Here’s my new lyric video for Corporations Are People Too! is out! It’s the peppiest, grooviest, upliftingest track from my latest album The American Songbook: Redacted, and the video is a collaboration with Dan Pavelich, a multi-talented artist and good friend.
What on Earth does Corporations Are People Too! even mean?
Remember when Mitt Romney said, “corporations are people, my friend”? He was referring to the concept of corporate personhood, which can make sense when needing an entity to sign a contract, but gets weird when the Supreme Court says their personhood entitles them to religious beliefs.
So I decided to make fun of this concept the best way I know how: a comedy song!
Inspired by the sunshine pop of the 60s and 70s, I’m really happy with the way this arrangement came together. And sticking with that era as inspiration, I asked Dan to create illustrations in the style of Hanna Barbara, Schoolhouse Rock, and a lot of the other stuff we Gen-Xers grew up with. He totally nailed the style and I couldn’t be happier with this video.
I hope you like it, and check out the other tunes on the album!
I don’t know if Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith meant for his metaphor of “The Invisible Hand” to sound as creepy as it does, but to me it sounds like a criminal organization in a James Bond movie. So when I wanted to satirize the concept of the invisible hand in my show and album The American Songbook: Redacted, I figured the best way to do it would be in the style of a James Bond title sequence!
Musically I’m really proud of the arrangement on the album, I did my best to capture the campy swagger of classic 60s/70s James Bond movies and those iconic John Barry soundtracks. My good friends Peggy O’Brien & Steven Rosenthal, both funny and talented filmmakers, offered to put together a title sequence style video for my live show, and when I saw how amazing the video turned out I knew I had to make it into a lyric video.
The Invisible Hand: New Lyric Video debuts Jan 26!
One of my favorite tracks on The American Songbook: Redacted studio album is The Invisible Hand, a 60s-era James Bond style theme song about Adam Smith’s famous metaphor for laissez faire capitalism. The joke being that “invisible hand” sounds like some kind of underworld organization that you’d find in a James Bond movie (fwiw I wrote and performed the song before a secretive organization named The Invisible Hand appeared on the animated spy comedy Archer).
When it came time to record a studio version of the song I wanted an arrangement that sounded as much like a classic James Bond theme as possible and I’m really proud of the orchestration and performance I put together.
When I did the song live in the debut performance of the The American Songbook: Redacted, I had a very simple slideshow animation projected on the screen behind me. My good friends Peggy O’Brien and Steven Rosenthal, amazingly talented filmmakers, asked if I had thought about doing a video montage in the style of a James Bond title sequence. I said I had but added that my video and after effects skills probably weren’t good enough to do something worthy of the arrangement I hoped to put together.
Lo and behold, they offered to put together something, and what they delivered was so unbelievably cool that I wanted to do more with it than project it behind me in the live show. With their permission I put lyrics over their great visuals to create a lyric video for the song. It’s the 4th lyric video from AS:R after Satanic Panic, The Great Disappointment, and The People Who Were Already Here, and it will be released on Thursday, January 26 at 9pm NYC time, 0100 Friday, 27 of January GMT.
There may be a live stream on premiere night, I’m still figuring out what to do (and I need to reconfigure the laptop I used to stream all those Cover Tuesday shows after an operating system upgrade) so stay tuned, I’ll update here and post on the various social medias that I still can tolerate (post,mastodon and instagram).
Update! (Jan 26, 2023, 2pm EST)
The premiere is tonight at 9pm NYC time and I’ll be doing a 30-minute pre-premiere live stream to talk about the video, James Bond Themes, and maybe even laissez faire capitalism if people are into it! Here’s the lyric video will be here, and will go live at 9PM, and the pre-premiere live stream will be on YouTube and Twitch! Come through if you can!
It such a cool video, I can’t wait for you to see it! Until then, check out the cool arrangement in one of the embedded players below 🙂
This is my favorite song musically on the new live album so I had to make sure to get a lyric video together for it!
I even dabbled in calligraphy to make some of the props for the beginning of the video because I figured there had to be something hand-written in a song about impersonal invitations 😛
Check out the other lyric videos from the live album too, there a lot of fun and a nice way to enjoy tracks from Rob P. Rocks a Jazz Club while you’re poking around on YouTube. And you can always buy the album on iTunes, bandcamp, Amazon, etc. or stream it on Spotify. It’s everywhere! But the only place you get all the lyric videos is right here at the HQ.
Contrarian is track 2 on 2013’s Keep Your Jazz Hand Strong! and I think it’s a really fun, upbeat tune. When I was recording it (here at my Brooklyn HQ) I was having a hard time really getting the energy up where I wanted it. I knew I had the right tempo but something was missing. Then I realized: I needed a hype man!
Every good ska band has a hype man! I was pressed for time though so I had to step in and be my own hype man (Be Your Own Hype Man is going to be the title of the self-help book I write in my retirement). I know I must have looked a fool jumping around my apartment trying to hype up a band that was also me, but it was a lot of fun and I hope that comes through on the track.
Lyrics-wise it’s a subject I’ve always wanted to tackle as I’ve had many friends over the years who have relished the role of contrarian, of finding out what everyone likes and decided to dislike it and like something else. Not because they truly like things, they just like liking what others don’t like.
O.K., now I’ve confused myself. Here are the lyrics:
Come on!
You always disagree!
I know a guy, he makes me quite irate
Anything I like he automatically hates
He’s a contrarian, You can never be right! He’s a contrarian
If all of his friends say they like a flick
He’ll say it was lame just to be a dick
He’s a contrarian, “I don’t have to see the movie.” He’s a contrarian
He’ll argue for days on end
Just because to him that’s fun Never ending! He’s a contrarian
He’ll say the opposite thing just to egg you on
If the whole room is pro, you know he’s gonna be con… Khan!! He’s a contrarian, Everybody’s always wrong! He’s a contrarian
He never takes time to think things through Automatic!
He just disagrees because he thinks he’s better than you
He’s a contrarian, “Pfff, yeah, you’d think that.” He’s a contrarian
He could score less points than you and somehow say he won “I played smarter.” He’s a contrarian
Watch him now!
None of his beliefs are held deeply It’s all on the surface!
Blindly choosing the opposite takes no thought It’s so predictable!
If all of his friends became contrarians like him
He’d say, “oh, that’s what you are? Then I’m not.”
He’ll spend all day quoting useless facts,
All of his videos are Betamax Betamax! He’s a contrarian, “It’s a superior technology” He’s a contrarian “It’s not that inconvenient.”
Any agreement just makes him tense
So he’ll argue things that don’t make sense
He’s a contrarian, “I just don’t think puppies are that cute.” No! He’s a contrarian “Sunshine? Bah!”
He would join the NRA just to say he doesn’t like guns Bwoh! Bwoh! Bwoh! He’s a contrary…
He’s a contrary…
A very, very contrarian Contrarian!
One of my favorite tracks on 
