Me, too – which is why I love it when people keep talking about how absurdly young he is.

A lot of Obama choices were from the 1960s, so he has chosen outside his generation (teenage years to 30), especially since he was in Indonesia much of this time.

Note that both chose Cole Porter songs sung by Sinatra. Cole Porter: YES. My preference: Ella as the singer.

Note that McCain chose relatively few songs from his youth. He graduated from high school in 1954, before rock hit the scene. My brother in law is McCain’s age, and he is a Sinatra man. McCain was in his 40s when ABBA was big. Is is of note that his marriage was breaking up when ABBA was big? It is as if his time in prison camp wiped out some of his cultural memory. Most people identify with songs they heard up to age 30- more under age 20.

Regarding Obama’s choices. Aretha and Nina are good choices- practically anything they did would be a good choice. Gimme Shelter- seems lame to me. But then Dead Flowers and As Tears Go By are my Stones’ favorites.

I guess I am out of touch, because while I can at least hum all of McCain’s choices, there are a number of Obama’s choices that I don’t know. Reason: I know Billy’s, Ella’s, and Sara’s songbooks fairly well to the detriment of knowledge of pop songs in the last decades. McCain learned a lot more pop songs in his forties than I did in my forties.

I’m a bit older than you are, BW, but I always liked ABBA, too, for the same reasons you state. Kind of like the Beach Boys, and Jan & Dean’s music. Just happy, good music.

As a photographer, I had to laugh — not derisively! — at the dated, 70s f/x in the video. GAWD! They musta used half a jar of Vaseline on the glass in front of the lens to get that selective mega-soft focus in some of the shots (but it was well done)!

Ahhhh, Youth is wasted on the Young.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050825/