Time for this week’s song from my iPod:

The DecemberistsThe Decemberists is an indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The group was formed in 2000 and is made up of Colin Meloy (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Funk (guitar), Jenny Conlee (keyboards), Nate Query (bass), and John Moen (drums). The name of the group comes from the Decembrist Revolution of 1825. This revolution occurred when 3,000 Russian soldiers protested that the heir to the Russian throne, Constantine, renounced the throne and Nicolas I became Tsar. The revolution was a failure and most of the protesters either died during the revolt, were executed afterward, or were sent to exile in Siberia.

As an amusing aside, Republicans were rather annoyed that The Decemberists performed in a free rock concert before an appearance by Barack Obama when he was running for president. The first claim was that the only reason Obama had 75,000 people appear was because of The Decemberists. However, the group has never appeared with crowds larger than a couple of thousand people so it is fair to say that Obama brought out the crowd for The Decemberists. The second claim was that the group was made up of a bunch of commies because of their name and because they occasionally play the National Anthem of the Soviet Union in concert – though that has little to do with politics and more to do with the whimsical, baroque backstory for the band that lead singer and Victorian-era fiction enthusiast Colin Meloy has constructed.

The group has had some commercial success with their most recent album reaching #35 on Billboard’s Top 200. Their new album, The Hazards of Love, is coming out at the end of next month. The song, “16 Military Wives”, is from their album Picaresque which came out in 2005. The song is a protest song against the Iraq War. The video shows a model UN at a fictional high school where the kid representing the US tries to bully a smaller country and then gets his in the end.

16 Military Wives
Sixteen military wives
Thirty-two softly focused brightly colored eyes
Staring at the natural tan
of thirty-two gently clenching wrinkled little hands
Seventeen company men
Out of which only twelve will make it back again
Sergeant sends a letter to five
Military wives, whose tears drip down through ten little eyes

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da

Fifteen celebrity minds
Leading their fifteen sordid wretched checkered lives
Will they find the solution in time
Using their fifteen pristine moderate liberal minds?

Eighteen academy chairs
Out of which only seven really even care
Doling out the garland to five
Celebrity minds, they’re humbly taken by surprise

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da

Fourteen cannibal kings
Wondering blithely what the dinner bell will bring
Fifteen celebrity minds
Served on a leafy bed of sixteen military wives

Cheer them on to their rivals
Cause America can, and America can’t say no
And America does, if America says it’s so
It’s so!

And the anchorperson on TV goes…
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da
La de da de da de-dadedade-da-dedadeda-de de dadede-daaaaa