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Foo Fighters Slam John McCain Over Use of Song |
 John McCain, maverick that he is, has gone and done it again – used a song as part of his US presidential campaign and forgotten to ask the band for permission.
The latest victims – after scuffles between Republicans and Heart, Jackson Browne, Boston and John "Cougar" Mellencamp earlier this year - are the Foo Fighters. Their 1997 hit, My Hero, is the McCain campaign's new theme tune. And as the Foo Fighters made clear in a statement, Republican senator John McCain isn't, er, their hero.
"It's frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to speak for the American people would repeatedly show such little respect for creativity and intellectual property," they growled. "This isn't the first time the McCain campaign has used a song without making any attempt to get approval or permission from the artist."
The band said that permission to use the song was not sought from them, their management, their label or their publisher.
"The saddest thing about this is that My Hero was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential," the statement reads, although many fans have speculated that the song, written by Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, refers to his admiration for former Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain.
"To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song. We hope that the McCain campaign will do the right thing and stop using our song — and start asking artists' permission in general."
Besides, as McCain's standing plummets in the polls, perhaps his campaign ought to change musical tacks. Rock music doesn't seem like the appropriate soundtrack to impending economic doom ... maybe free-jazz, doom metal or musique concrète. Surely Anthony Braxton or Sunn O))) could lend the campaign a few minutes of screeching, screaming noise?
guardian.co.uk 09 October 2008 |
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