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Thanks, again, Tim!
Bad political satire is easy to find. Too many right wingers think that making a scatalogical joke is somehow a political statement. The right wing's obsession with sphincters and excrement and other people's sex lives is disgusting. A conservative is someone who was improperly toilet trained. That stuff was funny when I was eight, but I grew up. Most of the "satire" on right wing talk radio is just recycled bathroom humor that made the girls cry in fourth grade. And it still does, which explains a lot about the conservative movement.
Good political satire is harder to find, but worth the effort. The songs of Tom Lehrer, many written in the 50s and the rest from the 60s, still resonate today and he's part of the vocabulary of musical political satire. It's tempting to talk about him here, but there are many many many sites dedicated to Tom Lehrer, as it should be. I'll go for more recent music. Not all good political satire skewers the right, but somehow the left/center commentary is more cleverly written, more entertaining and more likely to be worth listening to years later.
The Capitol Steps specialize in topical humor, and they'll take on anybody. They're a bunch current and former Congressional staffers working out of Washington DC, and their web site has songs about events in today's headlines. Many of the songs are recorded in front of a live audience. They write new lyrics to old songs (what might be called "political filk"), and are usually dead on. In addition to their parodies, such as Enron-ron-ron (to the tune of Do-Ron-Ron) and Mine Every Mountain, about drilling in ANWAR (both songs can be heard on their site), some albums have an original piece called Lirty Dies, commentary done completely in spoonerisms. They skewer everyone and are frequently hilarious doing it. Their current CD is When Bush Comes To Shove. Get it quick: sometimes the parodies get dated awfully fast. Still, these guys are on top of current events and have a devilishly cynical take on the news. And sometimes, a political joke is funnier when the cycle comes around to it again.
The Foremen only have four albums out, and much of the first two is in the third (heck, two of them have the same name). They are technically out of print, but you can try to get them from Roy Zimmerman's site. Folk Heroes (1995) and What's Left (1996) (boasting a quote from Ollie North, "Friends, this is a very weird group") are the two I have. The first one has their best song, Building For The Future ("When the hopeless hordes have found their voice, and a priest can marry the man of his choice, and no one plays bagpipes or quotes from James Joyce, you'll be there, Buddy you'll be there.") They wander into partisan territory in Ain't No Liberal and My Conservative Girlfriend and come up with a staggering amount of euphamisms for masterbation in Firing The Surgeon General (hey dittoheads: this is the way to use sexual innuendo for political commentary). What's Left has a number of really good bits, from the right wing announcements at Scorched Earth Day to the brilliant What Did You Do On Election Day and California Couldn't Pay Our Education to Gingrich's Hidden Agenda to cutting funding of independent radio in Privateers of the Public Airwaves. Highly recommended: even though a few cuts are a shade dated,many are still fresh and relevant.
Reverend Billy C. Wirtz is a force unto himself. Take Tom Lehrer's ability with language and audience interaction, the Foremen's propensity to skewer the right, and filter it through Jeff Foxworthy's southern viewpoint, and you have the Rev. Billy. I only have a couple of his albums. Backsliders Tractor Pull isn't so much political as it is deconstructive. Honky Tonk Hermaphrodite is about a good ol' boy... and girl. He has a Sleeper Hold On Satan and does an ad for Junior's Discount Frozen Embrio World and precisely bounces off Southern stereotypes in A Pinhead Will Survive. I should probably play Mennonite Surf Party right after The Electric Amish... By Songs of Faith and Inflammation, a live CD with introductions and audience laughter, Rev. Billy slips more direct political humor with Right Wing Roundup, though my favorite cut is the string of metaphors he uses to express his love for his wife in Song For Judy ("...the way Elvis loved his mama, the way the Dalai loves his Lama..."). Pro wrestling gets the treatment in Grandma vs. the Crusher and We Dismember These is about nostalgia for political and pop cultural seven-day wonders. While the least overtly political of the three groups discussed here, he's the one I'd most like to see live.
Dave Romm is a conceptual artist with a radio show and a web site and a very weird CD collection. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here.
Thanks (again), Dave!
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