Your Presidents, In Song

As quixotic projects go, this one's pretty cool: The Washington Times reports that a group of songwriters -- Matthew Gerken, Christian Kiefer and Jefferson Pitcher -- have teamed up on a three-CD set, Of Great and Mortal Men, that includes 43 songs, one for each of the country's presidents.

For the most part, these aren't exactly toe-tapping tunes. Dealing with the lives and (widely varying) accomplishments of the nation's presidents in the pop-song format is challenging, to say the least.

Some of the songs apparently take rather substantial liberties with historical imagination. And the project is hardly an apolitical effort. As an independent reviewer notes, Democratic presidents of recent vintage come in for more praise than their Republican counterparts. "Now, we all know that government can be a force of good,” goes the FDR tune, while the George W. Bush number declares that “history will be very cruel.”

Still, in an era when people can barely be bothered to pay attention to the race for the highest office in the land, and many schoolkids know little of their country's leaders, any attempt to summarize the country's presidential history in song is worthy of admiration.