Does it really matter what type of music Dick Cheney has on his iPod?

What kind of music does Dick Cheney listen to on his iPod? Does it really matter? Is it any of our business what a man listens to while chillin’ on his headphones content in his own private Wyoming?

Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, seems to believe that it is plenty of our business. In an article that appeared in The Guardian on May 28th shortly before the release of his band’s latest album, X&Y, Martin declared, “It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead’s OK Computer. I think the world would improve. That album is f*#!ing brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn’t it change his?”

How does Martin know that Cheney hasn’t listened to Radiohead? How can he be absolutely certain that he has never listened to Radiohead? He may very well be right but does he really know for certain? Even if Cheney has never heard of Radiohead, who can say that Cheney hasn’t enjoyed an afternoon listening to Dylan, the Band, Marvin Gaye or Dusty Springfield? Besides, I can’t be certain about anyone who states, “Would it really be possible to start Nazi Germany if you’d just been listening to Bob Marley’s Exodus back-to-back for the past three weeks and getting stoned? Would the idea of the Holocaust seem so appealing?”

So then why I am spending time with someone who may amount to little more than the flavor of the month? Well, Martin does raise an interesting question. Does the music one listens to determine what kind of person one is? Martin evidently thinks so. The Coldplay frontman has apparently concluded that one cannot listen to Radiohead, Bob Marley or, for that matter, Johnny Cash without arriving at the same view of the world. But if everyone who listened to Radiohead, Marley or Cash came away with the same point of view wouldn’t life be terribly boring and predictable? That doesn’t mean that Cheney and Martin can’t both enjoy Thom Yorke’s multi-octave voice. But what does it say for individuality if people must take away precisely the same observations and apply them to the world in which they live note for note? Doesn’t Martin believe in the power of jazz improvisation � la Thelonious Monk?

Of course, Martin might not mean that at all. Consider that when he accepted a Grammy for Record of the Year in February 2004 he dedicated the award to, amongst others, John Kerry. Martin expressed his desire that Kerry “hopefully will be your president one day.” One cannot help but think that if Martin had endorsed Bush instead that liberals would have told him to confine his political opinions to matters germane to British soil. With that said one must wonder if this is what Martin meant by having one’s life changed. Simply put, if one were to listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer would one be programmed to vote the straight Democratic ticket? Or does Martin think that Cheney himself would abandon the policies of the Bush Administration, move to a hippie commune in Montana and grow dreadlocks once exposed to the genius of Radiohead? Either way, I believe that Martin is full of himself.

What would Martin think if he were to look at my assorted CD and cassette collection (yes folks, cassettes have not quite yet been relegated to the Smithsonian). Although my adolescence and early adulthood were in the late 1980s and the early 1990s my heart belongs to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Consider this partial list: the Beatles; the Allman Brothers; the Animals; the Zombies; the Easybeats; the Grassroots; the Left Banke; the Moody Blues; the Ozark Mountain Daredevils; America; Orpheus; Bread; Three Dog Night; Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; the Four Tops; the Staple Singers; Fever Tree; Chicago; Blood, Sweat & Tears; Iron Butterfly; Spirit; Bob Dylan; Donovan; Laura Nyro; Jim Croce; Todd Rundgren; Badfinger; Neil Diamond; James Taylor; Carly Simon; Simon & Garfunkel; Harry Chapin; Tim Hardin; Harry Nilsson; Tim Buckley; Richie Havens; Nick Drake and Cat Stevens.

He would also occasionally find an artist from the 1990s such as Jeff Buckley (Tim’s son) who like his father died far too soon. Toss into the mix some artists from my native Canada such as the Guess Who; the Stampeders; Lighthouse; Ken Tobias; Gordon Lightfoot; Gino Vanelli and Joni Mitchell. Throw in some jazz from Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis and Chet Baker and you have a collection as eclectic as that of any 32 year old white, Republican male.

I am living proof that one can enjoy a song like Nature’s Way by Spirit yet still support oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I disagree with much of the lyrics in the Staple Singers’ If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me) but love the song’s arrangement so much that I hardly care. I can comprehend the ugliness of war in the Animals’ classic We’ve Got to Get Out of this Place and perhaps even more so in the eloquent Sky Pilot. Yet I also recognize that pacifism does not bring us peace and if anything emboldens the Islamic fundamentalists who wish to kill us and end the free world as we know it. Freedom is meaningless if we are not prepared to fight for it when attacked and, when necessary, in situations where others are deprived of it by despots and tyrants.

Put even more simply I love Tim Buckley’s five and a half octave range voice even if it did not strike a chord with William F. Buckley. James Taylor can sing for John Kerry to his heart’s content. That doesn’t preclude me from enjoying songs like Walkin’ Man or Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight. I may cringe at Paul McCartney for supporting PETA, an organization that likens a chicken dinner to the Holocaust. But that will not prevent me from going to see his show when he comes to perform in Boston this September. He is still a Beatle, after all. To quote the Stones for the umpteenth time “it’s only rock n’ roll but I like it.”

If a person’s voice, an instrument or unique arrangement move me then it moves me regardless of who they happen to cast a ballot for. If I like it, I like it. Chris Martin may very well persuade me to listen to X&Y for three straight weeks. I may come to love it in the same way that I love America’s A Horse With No Name or the Moody Blues’ Every Good Boy Deserves Favor or Harry Chapin’s Dance Band on the Titanic. My life may be enriched by it. But it will not make me regret my vote for President Bush last November nor will it likely compel me to vote for Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat. The only way I will vote Democrat is if the candidate has a good platform and the Republicans are unable to put forth any viable alternative. Although anything is possible I don’t foresee this situation changing anytime soon.

Chris Martin might sincerely believe that the Holocaust would have never come to fruition had Hitler listened to Marley instead of Wagner. But then again, who would have predicted that Cat Stevens could write songs like Here Comes My Baby, Into White and Morning Has Broken and then publicly support the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie? How could someone who wrote such mellow music advocate such brute violence? I remember Sam The Record Man pulling Stevens’ records off their shelves in protest (no visit to Toronto is complete without a visit into Sam’s flagship store on Yonge Street). What of Stevens’ (now known as Yusuf Islam) financial support of Hamas’ front groups such as the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services? Stevens, for his part, denies that his monies have reached the hands of terrorists. Either Stevens is lying or he is incredibly naïve? Whatever the case, what can one say of the Peace Train if it is to be blown up by suicide bombers? For that matter, does Stevens like Radiohead?

I still have a cassette of Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman. I listen to it from time to time. It is a great album that has survived the test of time. I have no intention of getting rid of it. Yet I am well aware that someone capable of producing such beauty is equally capable of supporting violence against civilians. With that, I admire Cat Stevens in the same way I admire Ty Cobb. It would be foolish to deny Stevens’ greatness as a musician or Cobb’s greatness as a baseball player. It would be equally foolish to elevate either Stevens’ or Cobb’s decency as human beings, given Stevens’ willingness to see those he sees as non-believers executed or Cobb’s willingness to act on his hatred of black people.

It has been often said that to judge a man one must walk a mile in his shoes. In Chris Martin’s case, he may wish to look at Dick Cheney’s record collection before rendering any judgment. To do otherwise would simply be a cold play. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have front row seats to see The Original Box Tops (with Alex Chilton) and Eric Burdon and the Animals.

Aaron Goldstein, a former member of the socialist New Democratic Party, writes poetry and has a chapbook titled Oysters and the Newborn Child: Melancholy and Dead Musicians. His poetry can be viewed on www.poetsforthewar.org.

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