Friday, February 15, 2008
Posted at
01:28
by
Carly Carioli
Boy, the Republicans are not having much luck with campaign songs this quarter. First John Mellencamp tells John McCain to quit using "This Is Our Country" -- look, man, using mah song to sell pickup trucks is fine, but selling war heroes to red staters? uh uh -- and now a "shocked" Tom Scholz (Obama man that he is) explains to Huckabee that "More Than A Feeling" is not about Jesus or governors or how Darwinism is a lie: "I think I've been ripped off, dude!" Favorite part of the letter: the signoff -- "still evolving." Har!
Now if we could just get Barry Goudreau (of Ernie and the Automatics "fame") to sign on . . .
If you can't read the jpeg above, here's the full text from Scholz to Huckabee:
Dear Gov. Huckabee:
It has come to my attention that your campaign's use of my song More Than a Feeling and my band's name BOSTON has resulted in a great deal of false information, which it now appears may exist permanently on the Internet. While I'm flattered that you are fond of my song, I'm shocked that you would use it and the name BOSTON to promote yourself without my consent.
Your campaign's use of More Than a Feeling, coupled with the representation of one of your supporters as a member "of BOSTON" clearly implies that the band BOSTON, and specifically one of its members, has endorsed your candidacy, neither of which is true.
I wrote and arranged More Than a Feeling, engineered and produced the recording, and actually played all the guitars on that BOSTON hit as well as most of BOSTON's songs, not the person holding a guitar in your promotion who identified himself as being "of BOSTON." Your claim that this was "the guy who originally did it" is a bit mystifying since he never played on that recording, nor has he been "of BOSTON" since he left my band over a quarter century ago, after performing with us for only three years.
BOSTON has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything BOSTON stands for. In fact, although I'm impressed you learned my bass guitar part on More Than a Feeling, I am an Obama supporter.
While this may seem like a little thing to you, BOSTON has been my life's work. I hold the trademark to the name and my reputation is inexorably tied to it.
By using my song, and my band's name BOSTON, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I've been ripped off, dude!
The unfortunate misconceptions caused by your campaign now live indefinitely on Internet news sites and blog archives.
As the "straight talk candidate," I hope you will help undo the damage still being caused by this misleading use of BOSTON and More Than a Feeling.
Still evolving,
Tom Scholz for BOSTON