BORN IN THE USA: The Rockers Who Don’t Want to See Their Songs Used by Politicians

Michele Bachmann, ultra-conservative tea party movement candidate for president thought she had found a rare pearl for her campaign: It’s her! The “American Girl,” Tom Petty sang about in the ‘70s. And so the candidate used the 29 second opening of the song for one of her meetings.

Problem: The singer and ex-leader of the Heartbreakers has demanded that Bachmann cease to use his hit, Rolling Stone magazine’s website confirms. Recall that Tom Petty has already had trouble with George Bush: In 2000, the Republican candidate wanted to use “I Won’t Back Down” and received Petty’s flat out refusal.

The Daily Beast, highlighting that rockers, like Hollywood stars, rarely ideologically align with the right, takes it back a bit further. John Mellencamp against John McCain, Heart against Sarah Palin, Tom Scholz against Mike Huckabee, Joe Walsh against Joe Walsh (Eagles’ guitarist against his namesake Illinois Republican), Sam Moore against Barack Obama…

And let’s not forget one of the forerunners of this genre: the “Boss” Bruce Springsteen, who saw red when Ronald Reagan used his “Born in the USA,” a song that told of American patriotism scarred by the Vietnam War, as a hymn to the American Republic.