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Presidential iPod loaded up with rock and country

As he ponders the future of the free world, the fate of social security or the state of the brush on his Crawford ranch, US President George W. Bush can turn to one source for solace: his iPod.

A birthday present from his daughters last year, the Bush iPod contains just 250 songs, from the knockabout comedy of Joni Mitchell's (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care to the straight ahead country blues of Stevie Ray Vaughn's The House Is Rockin.

Although Bush doesn't do anything so vulgar as download the songs himself -- that duty is performed by an aide -- the selection of music has analysts scrambling to deconstruct the contents of the presidential iPod.

What, for example, to make of the inclusion of The Knack's chirpy yet sleazy My Sharona, a staple of US college life for the last 20 years?

But that is about as risky as it gets.

"If any president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians, it would be a pretty slim collection," Mark McKinnon, Bush's chief media strategist last year, cycling buddy and fellow iPod enthusiast, told the New York Times.

But even the patriots on the Bush iPod are troubled souls. Country singers George Jones and Alan Jackson make the list, while Texan band The Gourds are best known for their zydeco cover of Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice.

His selection, said Joe Levy of Rolling Stone magazine, "tells you that the president knows a thing or two about country music and is serious about his love of country music."

"This is basically boomer rock'n'roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving ... It's feelgood music. The Sex Pistols it's not," Levy said.

The presidential iPod was first spotted in a photograph published in January which showed a pair of hands said to be Bush's holding one of the distinctive boxes. The song on the screen, showing Bush's sensitive side, was Van Morrison's plaintive Brown Eyed Girl.
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