Concert/MP3: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies to Celebrate Inauguration

Time to celebrate Obama day! The Washington City Paper presents, Songs for Presidents, a Bands for Lands benefit celebrating the Presidential inauguration of our new Presidents with performances from a ton of amazing bands including, Of Great and Mortal Men, These United States, and many more. They will be performing 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies.  A number of amazing artists will get together and perform songs written for the Presidents of the United States.

The event will feature:
* Nellie McKay * Jukebox the Ghost * These United States * Laura Burhenn * Tim Fite * Joe Pug * Denison Witmer * Silver Darling * Tom Carter (Charalambides) * Hiss Golden Messenger * Reid Maclean * J. Matthew Gerken * Jefferson Pitcher * Christian Kiefer * and many more yet to be announced!

Check out a track below of “Washington Dreams of the Hippopotamus” made for this event, featuring Vince DiFiore of Cake…

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Download “Washington Dreams of the Hippopotamus” (Right Click)

Songs for Presidents will take place at:

Saturday, January 17th, 2009
at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue
Washington, DC

If you can’t make the show, you can buy always buy the 3-disc box set with performances by Alan Sparhawk (Low), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon), Califone, Xiu Xiu, Bill Callahan, Radar Bros., Rosie Thomas, Denison Witmer, Tom Brosseau, Marla Hansen, Wooden Wand, and many others. The song for the 44th President will debut the week of inauguration.

Track Listing:

CD 1

1. George Washington (Washington Dreams of the Hippopotamus) feat. Vince DiFiore (of Cake)
2. John Adams (Armed with Only Wit and the Vigor of the U.S. Navy) feat. These United States
3. Thomas Jefferson (The Mouldboard of Least Resistance)
4. James Madison (Zinger)
5. James Monroe (The Last Cocked Hat) feat. Marla Hansen
6. John Quincy Adams (Death in the Speaker’s Room)
7. Andrew Jackson (Benevolence) feat. Califone
8. Martin Van Buren (The Little Magician) feat. Tom Brosseau
9. William Henry Harrison (So You Don’t Have To)
10. John Tyler (In Hindsight) feat. Bill Callahan (of Smog)
11. James Knox Polk (The Other Is Better / The Landscape to Transform) feat. Monahans
12. Zachary Taylor (Rough and Ready)
13. Millard Fillmore (The Proof Is in the Pudding)
14. Franklin Pierce (My Only Enemy Is Myself) feat. Stephen Yerkey

CD 2

1. James Buchanan (God Will Strike You Down) feat. Reid Maclean
2. Abraham Lincoln (Malice, Charity, and the Oath of God) feat. Wooden Wand
3. Andrew Johnson (Was Ever Alone?)
4. Ulysses Simpson Grant (Helicopters Above Oakland)
5. Rutherford Birchard Hayes (The Beard of God)
6. James Abram Garfield (Seven Months)
7. Chester Alan Arthur (The Epitome of Dignity)
8. Stephen Grover Cleveland (Bees and Honey) feat. Tetuzi Akiyama
9. Benjamin Harrison (Kid Gloves Hands Surplus to Big Sugar)
10. Stephen Grover Cleveland (Rubbermouth)
11. William McKinley (Czolgosz’s Dream) feat. Magnolia Summer
12. Theodore Roosevelt (The Sherman Act Does Not Care) feat. Dean Haakenson (of Be Brave Bold Robot)
13. William Howard Taft (There Was No Longer Use to Hide the Fact That It Was Gout)
14. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (A Life Among Men) feat. Jamie Stewart (of Xiu Xiu)

CD 3

1. Warren Gamaliel Harding (An Army of Pompous Phrases)
2. John Calvin Coolidge (On Silence) feat. Radar Bros.
3. Herbert Clark Hoover (Woe Is a Spoon-Shaped Heart)
4. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Illuminating the Bright Lines)
5. Harry S. Truman (Suits and Fine Trousers vs. Hiroshima) feat. Denison Witmer
6. Dwight David Eisenhower (When Ike Walked the Land) feat. Mark Kozelek and Alan Sparhawk
7. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (There Is No Plan)
8. Lyndon Baines Johnson (Ladybird Take Me Home) feat. Steve Dawson
9. Richard Milhous Nixon (2 Under Pay Off the Coast of Africa) feat. Tom Carter
10. Gerald Rudolph Ford (Now You See It, Now You Don’t See It)
11. James Earl Carter, Jr. (A Great Beam of Light) feat. Rosie Thomas
12. Ronald Reagan (Such a Marvelous Dream) feat. Califone
13. George Herbert Walker Bush (It Was Foreshadowed Here: The Beginning of the End)
14. William Jefferson Clinton (The Mighty Lion Will Not Roar Again)
15. George Walker Bush (Though the Night)