Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Rush Limbaugh *Hearts* PETA

There's this band called The Pretenders who sing some of the songs you know and love, even if you didn't know it was The Pretenders who sang those songs.

One song they sing, that you may not know all of, but probably recognize the riff/baseline of, is 'My City Was Gone' (video) (lyrics).

Thanks to Wikipedia and Rolling Stone magazine, we know that Rush Limbaugh is a huge animal rights supporter - as much as any Republican can be, I guess:

The standoff between CHRISSIE HYNDE and radio right-winger RUSH LIMBAUGH is finally over. Since 1984, Limbaugh had been using the "My City Was Gone," the Pretenders lament about the mall-ification of America, without Hynde's consent.| According to Hynde's manager, Limbaugh had not licensed the song for his nationally syndicated radio show, nor had he even asked for permission to use it -- something that didn't seem to bother Hynde all that much until Limbaugh told a pair of reporters in 1997 that "it was icing on the cake that it was [written by] an environmentalist, animal rights wacko and was an anti-conservative song. It is anti-development, anti-capitalist, and here I am going to take a liberal song and make fun of [liberals] at the same time." Last month, Hynde finally got Limbaugh to pull the song but then did an about face on Aug. 18, telling him that he could use the song if he donated all the royalties to the animal right's organization PETA, after PETA campaign manager Dan Mathews told her Limbaugh had a soft-spot for animals. She fired off the following missive to PETA to let them know of the recent developments. "In light of Rush Limbaugh's vocal support of PETA's campaign against the Environmental Protection Agency's foolish plan to test some 3,000 chemicals on animals, I have decided to allow him to keep my song, 'My City Was Gone,' as his signature tune and to donate all proceeds from the deal to further PETA's efforts in that regard" .

Rush, we hardly knew ye. Asshole.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not true. Rush pays royalties to BMI and Chrissie donates them to Peta.

Anonymous said...

Rush knows where the money goes. When it comes down to a choice between his brand and funding "Animal Rights Whackos" his principles are out the window. When he writes the check to Hynde he is well aware of where the money will go.