What's on George W. Bush's iPod?

[Lincoln]

Washington -- What, exactly, is on the First iPod? In an era of celebrity playlists -- Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback, recently posted his on the iTunes online music store -- what does the presidential selection of downloaded songs tell us about Bush?

First, Bush's iPod is heavy on traditional country singers like George Jones, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney. He has selections by Van Morrison, whose "Brown Eyed Girl" is a Bush favorite, and by John Fogerty, most predictably "Centerfield," which was played at Texas Rangers games when Bush was an owner and is still played at ballparks all over America.

The president also has an eclectic mix of songs downloaded into his iPod from Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy and his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign. Among them are "Circle Back" by John Hiatt, "(You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care" by Joni Mitchell, and "My Sharona," the 1979 song by the Knack that Joe Levy, a deputy managing editor at Rolling Stone in charge of music coverage, cheerfully branded "suggestive if not outright filthy" in an interview last week.

Bush has had his Apple iPod since July, when he received it from his twin daughters as a birthday gift. He has some 250 songs on it, a paltry number compared with the 10,000 selections it holds. Bush, as leader of the free world, does not take the time to download the music himself; that task falls to his personal aide, Blake Gottesman, who buys individual songs and albums, including Jones' and Jackson's greatest hits, from the iTunes music store. As for an analysis of Bush's playlist, Levy of Rolling Stone started out with this: "One thing that's interesting is that the president likes artists who don't like him."

Levy was referring to Fogerty, who was part of the anti-Bush "Vote for Change" concert tour across the United States last fall. McKinnon, who once wrote songs for Kris Kristofferson's music publishing company, responded in an e-mail that "if any president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians, it would be a pretty slim collection."

Nonetheless, McKinnon said that Bush had not gone so far as to include on his playlists "Fortunate Son," the angry anti-Vietnam War song about who has to go to war that Fogerty sang when he was with Creedence Clearwater Revival. ("I ain't no senator's son/ Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.") As the son of a two-term congressman and a U.S. Senate candidate, Bush won a spot with the Texas Air National Guard that kept him out of action in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Levy sized up the rest of the collection of the 58-year-old president.

"What we're talking about is a lot of great artists from the '60s and '70s and more modern artists who sound like great artists from the '60s and '70s," he said. "This is basically Boomer rock 'n' roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for Boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving. What I mean to say is, it's feel-good music. The Sex Pistols it's not."

Jones, Levy said, was nonetheless an interesting choice.

"George Jones is the greatest living singer in country music and a recovering alcoholic who often sings about heartbreak and drinking," he said. "It tells you that the president knows a thing or two about country music and is serious about his love of country music."

The songs by Jackson indicate that the president "has a little bit of a taste for hard core and honky-tonk," Levy said, adding that both Jackson and Jones "are not about cute and pop, and they're not getting by on their looks." And while Chesney "is about cute and pop and gets by on his looks," Levy said, "he's also all about serious country music."

[white Boy]

cool article, this ipod thing is bigger than africa.. but.. on a side note, wenever im walkin around, just listenin to my shit, im always wondering wat other people are listening to, sometimes i ask, but as much as you want to, its so hard to stereotype the kind of music a person listens to by how he/she looks

[chronic01]

haha i have had people aks me what i was listening too
once it was how we do when it first dropped way back and the girl was like yea that sounds like something ud listen too
and then she asked again some other time and when i said john mayer she was so shocked haha

[Low Key]

What? No G shit? How can he call himself the president?

[Rampant]

thats cool, but 250 songs....thats pathetic.

[MANBEARPIG.]

people asked me before but I was kind of embarassed so I was "eh ya know whatever" but I was listening to Daft Punk

[hapoo]

I wonder if hes got Outkasts "bombs over bagdad" on there. 

[Kill]

lol at "My Sharona" . i wish i had somethin better than this 512 mb mp3-player too

[white Boy]

thats cool, but 250 songs....thats pathetic.

there are a lot of people like that, that dont use their shit at all to its full potential, but a lot of the reason is that they get music legaly, i say fuck that, my 20 gig is full to the brim, i want a 40, tho