Tomorrow, I’ll be submitting music and lyrics for a campaign jingle for a political candidate. The amount of money I’m charging for campaign jingles is literally 75% lower than the amount my other professional musician friends are charging for their campaign jingles, and yet the amount of work I’m putting in is the same amount of work they are. This isn’t a complaint, though; in this day and age, let’s face it, writers will take their rackets wherever they can get it, hahaha.

Writing political jingles is a bit of a challenge, significantly different from praise and worship, which comes a lot easier for me. One has to come up with a good hook, a good melody, and, at least for me, lyrics that are more than vapid repetitions of the candidates name. (There’s only so much you can do, after all, with a candidate, for example, whose family name is Batumbakal, Dimaculangan, or Offemaria.)

There’s also the copyright issue. I’m not particularly enthused about taking someone else’s hit song and generating different lyrics to meet their melodies. Aside from the copyright, there’s the ethical issue, and I, for one, am not enthusiastic about taking a song I didn’t write and giving it new lyrics without permission.

A campaign jingle is a luxury for most candidates, I imagine. Given the target market, I can see why it can be very important. It’s really a sad thing, honestly, when so much attention is given the fluff and not the vital issues.

So what’s the evil plan? I’ll take one of my original recordings and pop new lyrics in. Stealing from myself. I should be ashamed. Hahaha!

As an aside: Have you picked out your candidates? I’ve only begun to select, but this is my tentative 12: Sonia Roco, Manuel Villar, Francisco Pangilinan, Joker Arroyo, Ralph Recto, Miguel Zubiri, Noynoy Aquino, Chiz Escudero, Ping Lacson, Alan Cayetano, Ed Angara, and Loren Legarda. That’s 7-4-1 in favor of the opposition. My mayor is Jun Bernabe, my vice-mayor is Anjo Yllana (oi vey!), my congressman is Ed Zialcita. Yun lang po.

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