President Obama's Spotify Playlist

Yesterday, fooling around with the hand-me-down iphone my children gave me, I clicked on a big S and found myself in a thing called Slate which proclaimed:

Barack Obama's Summer Spotify Playlist is Suprisingly Wonderful

This was amazing because I love surprisingly wonderful things.

So I clicked again.


In an instant I found myself on the thing called Spotify which invited me to join. Well, by this time, I was jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect of listening to the music recommended by the Most Powerful and Cool Person in the World, so I used one of the email accounts the kids have set up for me over the years (I squirrel them away like string) and Just Did It.

The president's music list popped up as did some more popular lists. In fact, it was rather disappointing to see that the president has less followers than some grungy teens, but that is the world we live in today and there's no use complaining about it.

POTUS had two lists. Day or night? Which list to choose?

I selected Day. The first song, by The Temptations was "Ain't Too Proud To Beg". I'm not, but I don't particularly want to broadcast it, so I switched to Night. And suddenly, there was Sinatra, crooning, "The Best Is Yet Too Come".

               Best is yet to come and babe, won't that be fine?
               You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine

Yes! That's the spirit! With growing excitement I scanned the rest of Night:

                  "I've Got Dreams To Remember" (Otis Redding)

                   "Feeling Good" (Nina Simone)

                    "My Favorite Things"-  not the fab Julie Andrews but the supercool instrumental version by John Coltrane

But the President looks so young! And yet, here were these songs! Does he secretly Early Bird? How old is he, anyway?

It dawned on me:

Six years, in president years, is like 42 years in normal people years.

Either that, or he got smart and instead of hiring fresh-faced kids to put together his playlist, he called on an actual adult.

Either way, Slate was right. It was a Suprisingly Wonderful playlist.

A nice way to discover a few new and a few old tunes...

.... J.A.