HFA: Behind the music
By: Mike Taylor
Tags: Music, Hillary Clinton, Hillary For America, Politics

What I appreciated most was the thoughtfulness that she and her team put in to each project we asked her to be a part of — they wanted to understand our goals and make sure that whatever tactic we came up with, whether it was a video, a contest or performance, that we were maximizing the impact. As the most followed person on Twitter, Katy certainly knows a thing or two about creating engaging social content, and we were ecstatic to have her expertise.

Katy’s passion for our campaign helped expose Hillary’s message to new audiences, and encouraged her fans to be a part of the political process. She wasn’t the only musician to lend her talents to something other than performing — countless others shared digital content with their audiences, appeared in videos, and opened up their homes for fundraisers. Demi Lovato performed many times across the country, but also talked about her struggle with bipolar disorder and how Hillary’s mental health policies would help others.

These artists talking authentically about topics they were passionate about and personally connected to were instrumental in making sure that campaign content was seen by the general public, even when the media didn’t report on it.

AND WE RISE UP

The moment I first heard Andra Day’s “Rise Up” in June 2015, I knew it had to be a part of the campaign. It was a song of encouragement, of persistence — a call to action. Not only were the lyrics perfect, but Andra’s voice and emotion sent chills down my spine. I was sold, but it took a little time to get others on board. Since the song was too slow to be added to our rope line playlist, I first pitched it to other members of the digital team for possible inclusion in a video. Only once my colleagues started hearing it at SoulCycle (true story) did they come around.

Fast forward to February 2016, and the Finance team was working on a big fundraising concert at Radio City Music Hall, similar to the record-breaking “One Night Only” concert Elton John performed for Hillary during the 2008 primaries. Elton agreed to perform again, this time joined by Katy Perry. Seeing this as the perfect opportunity to finally bring “Rise Up” in to the campaign, I suggested that we see if Andra was interested in joining the line up. We were thrilled that Andra’s team quickly said “yes,” and with that, the I’m With Her concert was born!

Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

With nothing but her pianist accompanying her, Andra sang a moving four song set, including “Gold” and “City Burns” from her debut album, as well as an inspired cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.” She closed with “Rise Up,” adding an extended outro with new lyrics: “spread a little hope and love now, encourage them to rise up now.” The audience was rapt and when the final notes had been sung, everyone was on their feet, giving Andra a standing ovation. We were immediately obsessed with this new outro and asked her to jump into the studio to record the track. Within 48 hours we had the audio files and our video team³ started working on what would become one of my favorite collaborations of the campaign: “Love and Kindness” — a television and digital ad launched in the days leading up to the April 26th primaries.

Due to the success of the spot, the song became increasingly associated with the campaign. We were pretty excited about it, and Hillary really liked it, so we asked the talented Samantha Ronson (who had been DJ-ing events for us from coast to coast for months) to remix the song for our rallies. We could not have been more pleased with the results, and from that point on we played “Rise Up” at all of our events.

Andra didn’t stop there — she went on to perform at our She’s With Us concert in Los Angeles, and performed “Rise Up” with a drum line on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Dreams do come true!

STRONGER TOGETHER

Throughout primary season, we kept adding songs to the rope line playlist: Jill Scott’s “Run Run Run,” the classic Gap Band song “Outstanding,” Sheryl Crow’s “Woman in the White House,” Justin Timberlake’s then-ubiquitous “Can’t Stop The Feeling” and several others. There was even a department-wide email chain debating the inclusion of Michael Bolton’s “Just One Love” (it eventually made it into the rotation).

Near the end of the primaries, the campaign settled on the slogan Stronger Together for the general election. With a new slogan, it was also time to refresh our playlist. This time we set up a Google Form to let anyone working on the campaign make suggestions for new additions while we also researched songs that reflected our new messaging.

From that search, we added classic tunes like John Mellancamp’s “Our Country,” and Michael MacDonald’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” alongside newer tunes like Darius Rucker’s “Together, Anything’s Possible” and Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound.” One of my favorite additions was a song called “Together” by Australian DJ Throttle and Canadian vocalist David Spektor — and apparently some of our supporters thought so as well (see below) — it even made headlines Down Under!

Throughout the campaign we released a few Spotify playlists for our supporters such as Girl Power⁴, another celebrating Women’s History Month, and one featuring Tim Kaine’s favorite songs after he was announced as Hillary’s running mate. Our goal was always the same: to celebrate Hillary and her supporters while also providing a new way for people to interact with and discover the campaign.

SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING (DEMOCRATIC) BLUE

We were fortunate to have many musicians offer their music — both existing hits and newly composed tunes — for us to use. While a few fit nicely into our playlists and videos, others took on a life of their own outside the campaign. During the 2008 campaign, there was also a bunch of songs that were either created or remixed for Hillary, including Sophie B. Hawkins’ “Damn! I Wish You Were President,” “Wonder Woman” by Maya Days and “Hillary in the House.” Here’s a sampling of some of the great content produced by our team and our grassroots supporters in 2016:

Singing string quartet (and recent Amazing Race contestants) Well-Strung released a parody of Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom” titled “Chelsea’s Mom” along with a video. Hillary loved it and invited the band to perform at a fundraiser in Provincetown in July 2015.

Near the end of the campaign, our tech team had built a tool that would allow you to donate “In Honor” of someone or something. Given the amount of content we were producing on a daily basis, we were trying to figure out a way to promote the tool and break through the noise. Jamie Lidell’s people had offered his song, “Me and You,” for us to use and it was the perfect fit.

Former American Idol contestant Jessica Sanchez released “Stronger Together,” written by Carol Bayer Sager, Bruce Roberts and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds that was played during the DNC.

A group of studio musicians and songwriters from Los Angeles put together this fun remix of Steve Winwood’s 1982 hit single “Valerie,” titled “Hillary,” to encourage people to support our campaign.

Crazy-Ex Girlfriend creator and star Rachel Bloom partnered with Funny or Die to release “HOLY SH*T (You’ve Got To Vote)” featuring Moby, Jane Lynch, Adam Scott, Mayim Bialik, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and others.

BACK TO THAT SMALL BOAT ON THE OCEAN…

AP Photo

January 2016, just a few weeks before the Iowa caucus, we finally got permission from Rachel Platten to use “Fight Song.” At that time, the campaign was using the slogan “Fighting For Us,” and we thought that this was the right moment to switch up Hillary’s walk on/walk off music before the start of the primaries and caucuses.

Our supporters latched on. It became a rallying cry and a song of encouragement. For many tired staffers and volunteers, it was a reminder to keep going. If Hillary could travel non-stop from coast to coast talking about her vision for the country, we could find the energy to keep working seven days a week.

We were watching the returns come in at HQ on March 15th (one of our many “Super Tuesdays” with primaries in five states: North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Missouri), and as the night went on, Hillary won all five contests. Each time a win was announced, we blasted the song, singing along as loudly as we could. It was our anthem. From then on, Fight Song was Hillary’s “theme” and played at each event for the rest of the campaign.

The song inspired so many people. Elizabeth Banks and producer Bruce Cohen even created a star-studded acapella cover with Eva Longoria, Ben Platt, Connie Britton, Idina Menzel, Mandy Moore, America Ferrera and many others that we debuted during the convention.

“Fight Song” moved us then, and it still does today — I was at a wedding recently where a group of campaign staffers sang/screamed along LOUDLY on the dancefloor while confused partygoers looked on.

ONWARD TOGETHER

Hillary for America saw how music could move and inspire people to join our campaign. Music also started to heal us after a tough loss. A few short (or very long, depending on how you look at it) days after Election Day, Kate McKinnon (as Hillary Clinton) performed a moving cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” on Saturday Night Live, ending with “I’m not giving up, and neither should you.” A different kind of fight song.

There has been a lot of great songs that have come out since November 2016. Music is bringing people together in the age of #TheResistance. Logic, Alessia Cara and Khalid’s “1–800–273–8255” encourages those struggling with depression to reach out for help. “Youth” by Shawn Mendes and Khalid particularly moved me in the wake of yet another violent shooting at a school.

No matter what kind of story you’re telling, music is certainly a powerful piece of the puzzle. It was for us. While it might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about a political campaign, it helped shape the soundtrack for a moment in history (or dare I say, her-story).

I’m looking forward to adding new songs to my playlists as we get closer to the midterms and move towards 2020. Onward. Together.