The CD is not the first bizarre White House offering to Pyongyang. During their summit, the US and North Korean delegations watched a four-minute video, made in the style of a Hollywood trailer, setting out the North’s stark choice: conflict with a powerful enemy or a peaceful and prosperous future as America’s (denuclearised) partner. The film, a copy of which was given to Kim, casts him and Trump as the architects of a new chapter in world history – “two men, two leaders, one destiny”.
Elton John’s Rocket Man brings back memories of 1972-73 to me. Vietnam was very much on our minds. My Social Studies class (normal in those days, my son on the other hand didn’t experience anything similar) debated Watergate and Roe v. Wade. Rocket Man was on Honky Chateau which I bought through my subscription to the Columbia Record & Tape Club and listened to on my portable cassette player. When I pictured Mike Pompeo carrying a message from Donald Trump to Kim Jong-un I thought of another track on that album (we called them „albums“ then, not „CDs“):
While Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Sons of bankers, sons of lawyers
Turn around and say good morning to the night
For unless they see the sky
But they can’t and that is why
They know not if it’s dark outside or light
…
Subway’s no way for a good man to go down
Rich man can ride and the hobo he can drown
My guess is Trump isn’t thinking of a song somewhat critical of New York’s monied class when he hears Rocket Man, but this morning in a Ukrainian laundromat that’s the connection I made. Funny that 45 years later some of us who listened to that album are as critical of capitalism as we were then, while others of us remain whores to it.
