Well, it looks like Donald Trump is going to be our next president. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms. If you’re a musical theatre aficionado, use these showtunes to help you deal with the next four years.
1. “American Idiot” from American Idiot
Fun fact: in the original staged version of the show, the song opens with a bunch of audio clips from various reality TV shows from the era in which the musical is set. One of those clips is—you guessed it—President-Elect Trump saying his catchphrase, “You’re fired!” It’s eerily prescient, especially given the song’s lyrics, like “Don’t want a nation under the new media” and “Welcome to a new kind of tension / All across the alien nation,” and the scarily relevant, “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda / Now everybody do the propaganda / And sing along to the age of paranoia.” Green Day’s album was released in George Bush’s America, but it could easily be about Donald Trump’s America.
2. “Populism Yea Yea” from Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
A genocidal maniac who tried to forcibly remove an entire minority population, rose to power on a wave of populism, and promised to defend the common man against wealthy bankers: sound familiar? While this description does apply to Donald Trump, it also describes Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh president and the face on the $20 bill (for now, at least). Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman’s musical about him, which opened on Broadway in 2010, imagined him as an emo punk, and the opening number, “Populism Yea Yea” is, again, an alarmingly accurate description of Trump’s America: “We’re gonna take this country back / From people like us who don’t just think about things / People who make things happen. / Sometimes with guns” and “Take a stand against the elite / They don’t care anything for us” and “We’ll take the land back from the Indians / We’ll take the land back from the French and Spanish / And other people in other European countries / And other countries too / And also other places / I’m pretty sure it’s our land anyway.” Jackson was a terrible president, who was responsible for the Trail of Tears, the Nullification Crisis (aka the time we almost had a civil war before the Civil War), and a major financial crisis in 1837, so it’s not like a Trump presidency is without precedent.
3. “Totally Fucked” from Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening is a rock musical that takes place in 1890s Germany—so the musical’s teenage protagonists were adults in Nazi Germany. Fun fun. 1890s Germany was a pretty repressive place, where girls died from back alley abortions and parents shamed and physically abused their children. When things go from bad to worse, the show’s protagonist bemoans his situation: “There’s a moment you know / You’re fucked.” The choreography for the number involves a lot of jumping around, including on and off of furniture. Crank the song up, jump around, and exorcise those Trump demons.
4. “What a Piece of Work is Man/How Dare They Try” from Hair
This is actually a monologue from Hamlet jumbled around and set to music, but the song’s placement in the show comes after the characters go through the horrors of the Vietnam War. It’s a nice reminder that even in the darkest of times—and even when the air is toxic to breathe—there’s still beauty in the world, and humankind has limitless potential for good. At the end of the song, the characters editorialize on the Bard’s words: “How dare they try to end this beauty?”
