“Christ for President” by Billy Bragg and Wilco

In “Christ for President,” a song written by Woody Guthrie, Billy Bragg and Wilco sing about the prospect of giving up on modern government and making Jesus Christ the president of the United States. They want Christ as their president because they believe it’s “the only way we could beat these crooked politician men.” Furthermore, they believe everyone will be able to get a “job and pension” if Christ is King, illustrating their displeasure regarding unemployment and benefits in America. Bragg and Wilco also bring up America’s wastefulness and compare it to the needy and hungry people in our own country as well as the rest of the world. “Christ for President” also brings up America’s inclination to get involved in wars. In this song, Bragg and Wilco take Guthrie’s words from the early 1900s and apply them to the current state of the world, illustrating that despite some changes in technology, not much in our world has changed. -  Emma Smith

LYRICS:

Let’s have Christ our President 
Let us have him for our king 
Cast your vote for the Carpenter 
That they call the Nazarene 

The only way 
We could ever beat 
These crooked politician men 

Is to cast the moneychangers 
Out of the temple 
Put the Carpenter in 

Oh it’s Jesus Christ our President 
God above our king 
With a job and pension for young and old 
We will make hallelujah ring 

Every year we waste enough 
To feed the ones who starve 
We build our civilization up 
And we shoot it down with wars 

But with the Carpenter 
On the seat 
Way up in the capitol town 

The USA 
Be on the way 
Prosperity bound