Stream: Devendra Banhart, ’25th Amendment’

S.Lo on September 14th, 2018

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WNYC’s More Perfect podcast deep dives into how Supreme Court decisions affect the lives of everyday people. To celebrate its upcoming third season, they’re unveiling “27: The Most Perfect Album” on Tuesday, Sept. 18, where artists such as Dolly Parton, They Might Be Giants, Kevin Morby and Amber Coffman wax lyrical on each of the 27 Amendments to our Constitution, as narrated by Jeffrey Wright (Westworld, the Hunger Games) throughout the collection.

Devendra Banhart tackles the “25th Amendment” with witty quips, going down the exhaustive list of succession for the chief seat at “1600 [Pennsylvania Avenue in] Washington, D.C.” from the first person perspective of a lowly elected or appointed (yet well-informed) public servant. It’s a brilliant take on Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime,” presidential style. To begin, he pleads for listeners to “pay attention to the following line of succession that’s been in place since the 1700s till today” because “although I’m at the bottom of the list / Oh lord, I never wanted this.”

And so rolls the first head, and succeeding heads, with hilarious premises that play hot potato with the role of the leader of the U.S.A. Accompanied by a folky strumming guitar, Barnhart begins with a President who has “a sudden and total awakening” and, “even worse than a newly grown moral compass and a developing code of ethics,” abandons the position to become an artist. “And so out the White House they went,” he continues, “And next came the Vice President / Who ate too much drywall / After seeing Lincoln’s ghost float oh so very disapprovingly down the hall.” It’s funny scenes like this that then bring us through the Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Pro-Tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense/Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary of Transportation, Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Veterans Affairs and, lastly, “In came the Secretary of Homeland Security / But after trying to explain that the matriarchy / Simply means equality / It was all too scary / We had to set him free” before “roughly after 323 million people more were swallowed by the seat / All fell on me / Now that’s a drag.”

To quote another Talking Heads song, “Watch out / You might get what you’re after” if you’re a pencil pusher somewhere in federal civil service holding onto your intent to change the world.

||| Stream: “25th Amendment”