Earlier this week, Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first politician to officially cast his hat in the ring to run for President of the United States in 2016. So far, the media and other politicians have been having a field day with him, mainly the fact that he’s a Canadian, which should automatically prevent him from running in the first place. And there are no shortage of dumb things the Tea Partier has said, but as the only candidate so far, now there’s extra scrutiny on him. CBS This Morning got around to asking him about music, and he said the following:
“Music is interesting,” he said. “I grew up listening to classic rock, and I’ll tell you sort of an odd story: My music taste changed on 9/11. And it’s very strange. I actually intellectually find this very curious. But on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me. “And I have to say, it just is a gut-level. I had an emotional reaction that says, these are my people,” Cruz said of country artists. “So ever since 2001, I listen to country music. But I’m an odd country music fan, because I didn’t listen to it prior to 2001.”
So apparently that means that a year before 9/11, Cruz started listening to country music because of the way they responded to something that happened the following year? OK, discounting his date confusion, maybe that means he gave up on rock after they didn’t write songs like Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” or Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” (which actually came out in 1992, but had a resurgence post-9/11).
In actuality, looking back at post September 11 in rock music, the tragedy caused a knee-jerk reaction of oversensitivity at the format. A lot of radio stations stopped playing Drowning Pool’s “Bodies.” Jimmy Eat World’s album Bleed American was re-pressed as a self-titled album. And while there was supposedly a list of songs Clear Channel banned, that never really happened. In fact, P.O.D.’s “Alive,” taken from Satellite (which actually was released on 9/11), became a rock anthem in the weeks following September 11. So clearly Cruz is just using the day as an excuse to show that he’s a man of the people.
[via Rolling Stone]
