30th
Old hippo-teeth
“Rock balladeers Christian Kiefer, Matthew Gerken and Jefferson Pitcher have performed a remarkable feat. They have composed and recorded 43 songs, one for each of the past and current presidents of these United States, and will release them as a 3-disc set… These songs-poems set to music, really-wittily, and sometimes not entirely politely, take issue with the mythology that those who have previously inhabited the White House were something more than human. Even George Washington does not escape their satire. On his deathbed, in Kiefer’s song, he recalls the political lies he told through his famous dentures made of hippopotamus teeth. Chester Arthur, the almost forgotten Republican Party “stalwart” who succeeded the assassinated James Garfield, declares himself to be “the epitome of dignity” and, comparing himself to Washington, says, “Old hippo-teeth, you got nothing on me.”… Kiefer, Gerken and Pitcher have done a remarkable thing here. They have sung our history like no one since Walt Whitman.”
