campaign jingles

i love saturdays. there’s something inherently laidback and relaxing about saturdays. which is hardly surprising because i usually associate this day with sleeping late, gimiks, entertainment, or just lazing around my place…

today i was rudely awakened (in more ways than one) from this absurd fallacy. i think i was in the middle of some pleasant dream, when suddenly this horribly grating, eardrum-assaulting music blared out right under my window. i wasn’t about to go down without a fight though. with eyes determinedly shut, i slapped a pillow over my head and tried to ignore the cacophony.

it was no use. after that ghastly intro, the loudspeaker blasted into life. “mga kabaranggay, sa darating na halalan, wag po nating kalimutan–”

feeling somewhat homicidal, i bolted from my bed, slammed the window shut, pulled the curtains down and tried to sleep once more.

fat chance. after 10 minutes i had to give up. even if i could drown out the speaker’s voice, it was the music that was the real killer. the singer (female) was extolling some local politician’s virtues in an awful campaign jingle set to Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud” (and it was!). i was hoping that — by some merciful act of fate — the campaign jeep would somehow move on say after 10 minutes, but no, the recalcitrant thing just stayed there like a leech for what seemed like an eternity.

at 9:10am i gave up the fight and reluctantly turned on my radio to dilute the din. a few minutes later, the jeep went on its merry way to assault another street corner…

which brings me to an interesting point. would somebody please tell me why politicians (or their managers or whoever it is that orchestrates this mess) almost always choose the worst kind of background songs to punctuate their campaign spots or ads? ever since i was old enough to to remember such things, i have yet to hear a campaign song that i can tolerate or (however unlikely) actually like.

well, of course, i can understand it if all they’re aiming for is the song’s shock value or the fact that, if played loudly enough to wake the dead, it might actually browbeat the voter into submission — and thereby drive him/her to vote for the said candidate, if only to stop the aural torture. but i wish those old fogeys would consider the hapless listeners. please guys, there are less blood-curdling ways to torture us, voters (listeners). at least choose a better song. or better yet, please don’t drown us with your crap on saturday morning. some of us are trying to catch up on our sleep after a week’s slog.

P.S. umm… or maybe it’s about time we petition the Comelec to disqualify the candidates with the worst-sounding campaign jingle *mwahahaha*. if nothing else, this will motivate the campaign managers to aim for better quality jingles.