Back to Post-Millennial Political Songs
"I Need a Dollar" Aloe Blacc 2010
Mike Coppola, Getty
Perhaps in another era, this hard-luck tale might not make this list, but the Great Recession has erased the line between economics and politics. Even more powerful for not attacking any particular party, Aloe Blacc's throwback track about a man who got laid off and is desperately "looking for somebody come and help me carry this load" does much to humanize the people who make up what Mitt Romney now dismisses as the 47 percent. But "Dollar" reminds us that the unemployed aren't there by choice -- as Blacc sings, "bad times are comin' and I reap what I don't sow."
