Ry Cooder's "Mutt Romney"

WOOF WOOF WOOF: Meanwhile, Ry Cooder’s Election Special (Perro Verde/Nonesuch, Aug. 21) leads off with “Mutt Romney,” which begins, “Boss Mitt Romney went for a ride/Pulled up on the highway side/Tied me down up on the roof/Boss I hollered woof woof woof.” In his notes, Ry wryly writes, “Reverend Al Sharpton said, ‘How he treated his dog tells you a lot about him.’ Where did Mitt Romney learn that hollow laugh of his? A correspondence course on how to scare your dog shitless? He sure scares me, I don’t mind telling you.” In his Uncut Album of the Month review, our own Bud Scoppa describes Election Special as “an impassioned screed against the dumbing down of America. But this is an uncommonly persuasive screed, because it’s set up not as polemic but rather as a series of vignettes, its harsh judgments lurking within sharply drawn narratives in which not a word is wasted.” (8/15a)