I was inspired to write the lyrics for “Hope of November” using Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” as a starting point after I saw a fading Obama bumper sticker while campaigning in the Bakersfield area.  

Liberal warriors are notorious for their thin skins and Don Henley is no exception. 

Perhaps I should mine some of Henley’s other songs for satirical gold.  “The End of the Innocence” comes to mind.  That 1989 song slammed Ronald Reagan, a man I worked for in the Defense Department, in the form of the line, “they’re beating plowshares into swords, for the tired old man that we elected king.”  At this line in the song the music video shows several Reagan posters while at the line “armchair warriors lead us into war” a television displays scenes of LtCol Oliver North’s congressional testimony.  Or perhaps the overbearing lyrics of “Little Tin God” will do.  The line referring to Reagan, “The cowboy’s name was Jingo,” cries out for parodic reengineering. 

YouTube rather blandly announced that my First Amendment right to parody was being infringed “…as a result of a third-party notification by Don Henley…”  But I wonder if the behind the scenes muzzler was David Geffen.  Geffen, who’s so far to the left that Hillary Clinton was too conservative for him, owns the label for the “The Boys of Summer.”  Geffen has lawyers, lots of lawyers. 

Perhaps Geffen’s lawyers are familiar with Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court case that dealt with “fair use” in parody.  In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that 2 Live Crew’s parody remake of the late Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” constituted fair use in spite of the fact that the rap group had taken much of Orbison’s material whole cloth and used it for commercial purposes.  My own parody using “The Boys of Summer” to lampoon President Obama uses original lyrics and clearly meets the Court’s four factor fair use test: “1) purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is commercially motivated or instead is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) nature of the copyrighted work; 3) amount and substantiality of the portion used in the newly created work in relation to the copyrighted work; and 4) effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.” 

Bottom line, we’ll be filing a counter notice today with YouTube today to reinstate our “Hope of November” music video rough cut, then work to make a better cut of the parody song available.  If YouTube again bows to Geffen’s lawyers or Henley’s whine, we’ll take it to where we should have posted it at the start: PopModal, “The Conservative Alternative to YouTube.” (The now-banned “Hope of November” music video can still be seen at: http://www.chuck76.com/nov/.) 

And, it goes without saying that I’ll now be looking for every opportunity to turn any Don Henley work I can into a parody of any left tilting politician who deserves it, (I keep thinking “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” would make a great transition into a Barbara Boxer parody).

A few days ago I posted some Obama parody lyrics set to Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” and am now formally soliciting the deep base of Big Hollywood talent to do a professional version of this parody. The campaign will have a contest and choose the parody effort posted on YouTube by April 6th.  

In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, here’s our own attempt performed by the DeVore for California Director of New Media, Justin Hart, working entirely on his own time. 

Obama’s “Hope of November” sung to the tune of Boys of Summer” with apologies to Don Henley: 

Obama overload
Obama overreach
We feel it everywhere
Trillions in the breach

Empty bank, empty Street
Dollar goes down alone

Pelosi’s in the House
So we now all must atone

But we can see through-
Your broken promises oh One
You got your head cocked back and your teleprompter on, maybe
And can we tell you our love for you will still be strong
After the hope of November’s gone?

We never will forget those nights
We wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made us crazy?
Remember how we made you beam
Now we do understand what happened to our love

Barack, we’re gonna cut no slack

We’re gonna show you what we’re made of

We can see through–
Your broken promises oh One
We see you talkin’ real slow and you’re smilin’ at everyone
Can we tell you our love for you will still be strong
After the hope of November’s gone?

Out on the road today, I saw a OBAMA sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice Inside my head said, “Don’t look back. You can never look back.”
We thought we knew what love was
What did we know?
Those days are gone forever
We should just let them go but-

We can see through-
Your broken promises oh One
You got that Rush pulled down and talk radio gone, maybe
And can we tell you our love for you will still be strong
After the hope of November’s gone?

We can see through-
Your broken promises oh One
You got your head cocked back and your teleprompter on, maybe
Can we tell you our love for you will still be strong
After the hope of November’s gone?