Don't Stop Thinking About the Music

In exploring the history of presidential campaign songs, Schoening and Kasper (both, Univ. of Wisconsin, Barron County) researched a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Following the brief introduction are eight chapters divided into three parts dealing with the "traditional era," the "mass media era," and the "popular music era." The authors begin with the earliest campaigns (1789), in which music was sparse. The 1840 campaign was the first to feature music, and campaign songs proliferated through the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th. Campaigns increasingly used commercially produced pop songs after midcentury. In discussing all this, the authors provide information on the candidates, details on changes in technology (from songbooks to the Internet), and the words to many of the songs. Though third-party presidential efforts, such as the Henry Wallace Progressive Party campaign (1948), are unfortunately overlooked, there is an interesting discussion of the role of the Internet in the 21st century. There is a very helpful, although selective, bibliography, which includes such important sources as Songs America Voted By, comp. and ed. by Irwin Silber (1971). Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.