Here I am on a Sunday mid-morning with the clock about ready to click to 12pm with the threat of a minor wind storm approaching. The wind guests are said to be in the range of 45 to 55mph at various moments throughout the day. I can hear the winds kicking up outside.
I was looking at the YouTube videos of Ray Stevens prior to writing this blog entry and I was adding up the unique views of his recent video uploads. I did an estimated total rather than doing it down to the specific number. In my analysis I added up the unique views of the following music video uploads that shown up in the last 6 days: "Everything is Beautiful" (6.7K), "Everything is Beautiful" / "United We Stand" (4.7K), and a 1987 television performance of "It's Me Again, Margaret" (7.8K). Those three video uploads have a combined unique view count of over 19.2K, or, in other words, more than 19,200 unique views. When you see the capital letter, K, following a number it's referencing numbers in the thousands whereas the capital letter, M, references numbers in the millions.
Ray's videos are typically active on a daily basis on YouTube. "The Quarantine Song", his music video from May of this year, has over 1.8 million unique views. "Grandpa Voted Democrat", several days ago, was in the 2.8 million range but now it's exceeded that with 2.9 million...specifically speaking that's 2,906,191 unique views. That particular music video was sitting at 2,877,319 on November 11th and since then it's added 28,872 unique views to bring it to it's current total as of this writing. When you do in-depth analysis of the music videos that I'm highlighting in this blog entry you can see that the three video uploads that debuted within the last 6 days (going back to November 9th) did great at grabbing a combined estimated figure of 19,200 but then we take a look at "Grandpa Voted Democrat" and see that in the last 4 days (going back to November 11th) that music video took in 28,872 unique views by itself.
Since I like rounding the numbers, for easy math, let's add the combined unique views of the three video uploads of the last 6 days (19,200) with the unique views obtained for "Grandpa Voted Democrat" in the last 4 days (rounded up to 29,000). When rounding the numbers we find that a combined total of 48,000 devices (computers, I-pads, I-phones, cell phones, smart phones, etc.) had Ray Stevens video content airing at some point during the last 6 days. Keep in mind that number is focusing only on four specific video uploads and the unique views they've obtained since November 9th. I didn't factor in how many additional people have seen other video content on his YouTube channel, like "The Quarantine Song", for example or video content featuring guests that have appeared on his locally syndicated PBS television series, CabaRay Nashville. Ray's YouTube video uploads remain active and engaging on his social media accounts.
It's me once again!! As you know I've been writing blog entries surrounding new music videos from Ray Stevens (released this past Monday) and in my previous blog entry I noted that Ray has two entirely different music videos that are just as active on YouTube and social media as the brand new music videos happen to be. I mentioned the highly active "The Quarantine Song" music video and I also mentioned "Grandpa Voted Democrat". I believe everyone can be united in a fight against voter fraud wherever it may exist or at least be united against the presence of voter fraud and irregularities that undermine the integrity of the voting process. To deny existence of fraud or to diminish it as being so miniscule that it has no impact on the outcome of an election is an irresponsible attitude, I think.
On August 11th of this year the music video had garnered 2,511,520 unique views. The video had been uploaded onto YouTube in 2012. On October 13th of the year the music video had risen to 2,713,458 and I wrote a blog entry promoting the music video obtaining 2.7 million unique views. Now then, I just looked at the totals for the 8 year old music video, and as of right now the video is sitting with 2,877,319 unique views. This is a pickup of 163,861 in less than a month's time. It's a pickup of more than 300,000 unique views between August 11th and November 11th. It's hard to tell how the post-election fallout will continue to play out. There's numerous lawsuits and mandatary recounts that are going to take place...and some States are still counting votes more than a week after election day!!
However this all plays out in the next couple of months, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" takes on voter fraud in a lighthearted fashion...but it makes it's point crystal clear if you listen carefully. Also, the sentiments expressed in the music video are still relevant in 2020. I don't know if that's something to be proud of or not?? This video, as mentioned, debuted in November 2012 and here we are 8 years later...with situations emerging from various States which allow the idea of voter fraud and corruption to dominate the election cycle!
It's me once again and I decided to take a look, once more, at the Ray Stevens music video "Grandpa Voted Democrat". As you could probably guess with this being election season the music video has had a resurgence of on-line sharing and discovery. The video made it's debut on November 3, 2012 and it had a massive response not only on that day but in the days and weeks after the 2012 election cycle came and went. The issue of integrity in the 2020 elections became an issue when a lot of States, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse, decided that this election cycle voters in States that have never dealt with mail-in voting, would receive ballots in the mail and for them to fill the ballots out and then mail them back. Mail-in voting had become something of a routine thing in a few States. Early voting is going on as I type this. Some, like myself, prefer to wait until Election Day to cast my vote. We're three weeks away from Election Day.
The decision by some States to mail out ballots by the millions has obviously alarmed a lot of people who feel there's too much potential for fraud and abuse when ballots are being mailed out to voters...in some cases to people no longer living or being mailed to addresses of voters who no longer live at that location. I may have referenced this in a blog entry from August of this year but a relative of mine recently received voter correspondence for someone in the family who recently passed away. The relative that passed away was living at the same address as the caretaker...but the local office hadn't deleted the relative from the voter registration records.
We've all heard stories of local fraud and abuse taking place with ballots...and the argument from Democrats is always the same: "it's isolated...it doesn't represent the country as a whole...". Well, in a national election where millions of mail-in ballots have been sent out, the potential for larger widespread ballot abuse should be something that we keep in the forefront and not let it become lost among the chaos and confusion that's bound to show up in three weeks time. The rush to push mail-in voting when it was not necessary deliberately set the stage for chaos and confusion. COVID-19 is simply a convenient scapegoat.
"Grandpa Voted Democrat", back on August 17, was sitting with 2,511,520 unique views. When I looked at the numbers a couple of minutes ago the unique view count had risen to 2,713,458. This is a pickup of 201,938 unique views in a little more less than 2 months time! I'm hoping there will be no voter fraud, abuse, or integrity issues but it's difficult to say there won't be with this year's election cycle consisting of so much mail-in ballots in the postal system. I'm hoping with so much attention focused on fighting the potential for fraud and abuse that it causes those who are thinking about disrupting the 2020 elections to think twice.
Hello all!! I'm taking a look back at "Grandpa Voted Democrat", one of the classic political comedy songs Ray Stevens released in 2012. The song itself is from his political comedy CD, Spirit of '76, released a year earlier in 2011. The video hit YouTube just prior to the 2012 election and so when you watch the video you're going to see some topical imagery from that time period...screen caps from cable news channels...and other imagery on the minds of people during that election cycle. An unforeseen benefit to Ray's funny political videos is seeing public figures in entertainment and politics that have either gotten out of the spotlight or have since been voted out of office.
I took a look back at this particular music video back in May of this year. When I reported the numbers in May the video had 2,330,401 unique views. A couple weeks later in early June it had risen to 2,396,531. A quick math recap shows that from May 22, 2020 through August 17, 2020 the "Grandpa Voted Democrat" video had been accessed 181,029 times to bring it's overall total of unique views to 2,511,520 as of this writing!!
It's me once again!! I wasn't intending on composing a blog entry about the Ray Stevens music video, "Grandpa Voted Democrat", until later in the year as we get closer to the national election in November. However, news surfaced throughout yesterday regarding the Georgia primary and what's being described as the voter chaos that ensued as a result of new voting machines. The story isn't necessarily about voter fraud in the basic sense of the definition but it nevertheless plays into a lot of anxiety surrounding the voting process during a pandemic, the concept of mail-in ballots, and the reliability of accuracy heading into a Presidential election this coming November.
If you recall, back in November 2000, Al Gore held the country hostage with constant re-counts of the Florida vote due to chaos at polling places and voters not filling out their ballot correctly in a couple of notable counties. That particular State, in that particular year, stood between him and the White House...and so a re-count was understandable and I believe a re-count was required by Florida law due to the race being so razor thin close...but what become intolerable were the repeated calls for re-counts. It caused the Gore Campaign to appear as if they didn't trust the results because each subsequent re-count always shown George W. Bush the victor. Eventually the Secretary of the State of Florida ended the prolonged series of re-counts in early December by certifying that George W. Bush won the State (by as little as 537 votes) and by doing so it gave him enough Electoral votes to become President in 2000.
The Georgia voter chaos is reported on in this LINK.
In the meantime "Grandpa Voted Democrat" has continued to receive some unique view action on YouTube. In a blog entry I wrote last month (back on May 22nd) I reported that the video had 2,330,401 unique views. When I last visited YouTube the unique views for that video had risen to 2,396,531...a pickup of 66,130 in little less than a month.
Hello all! The subject of mail-in ballots and voter fraud continue to periodically make headlines. There is an effort to play up the advantages of mail-in voting and downplay the pitfalls of mail-in voting...and it's all based on each politician's point of view regardless of party. Ray Stevens addressed the topic of voter fraud in his recording, "Grandpa Voted Democrat", which hit YouTube several days before the 2012 election. Those that downplay voter fraud often argue that cases of it are minuscule and rarely effect the outcome of elections while those that bring up voter fraud argue that you shouldn't have complacency when it comes to votes being counted from unregistered voters and showing indifference when it comes to mail-in ballots that are lost in the postal system. Those who favor mail-in voting for all do not want to hear about what they consider isolated, non-consequential issues of fraud and abuse.
There has long been absentee voting...often for members of the military and for those with over-whelming physical incapability that they're unable to show up in person at the polling place...but what this pandemic has created is an avenue to install mail-in voting on a permanent basis. Do you really think in next election cycle will be 'normal'? It'll more or less be mandated that voters mail-in their ballots...regardless of there not being any pandemic by that time. This is why it's dangerous when Government takes advantage of a crisis. In the aftermath they'll call it a 'new normal' rather than go back to the real normal.
Now, since the workforce is being asked to keep 6 feet apart from co-workers and when you're in line at a store you're to remain 6 feet apart...why in the world can't local polling places have a policy about remaining 6 feet away from the next voter or maybe have a sign on their window saying so many voters are allowed in at a time?? The idea of pushing mail-in voting for the entire country is ridiculous and, yes, a recipe for potential fraud and abuse. The people at the board of elections are, in effect, lazy if they don't want to try and figure out ways to have the polling places open on Election Day...less than 6 months from now. It shows me and it should show everyone that they just don't care...mail-in ballots and mail-in voting is going to be the 'new normal'. In the meantime...here's the Ray Stevens voter fraud music video from 2012...
I hadn't been keeping up with the unique view statistics of this video because it hit nearly 8 years ago but I know that it's gotten a whole new resurgence within the last several weeks based on how many times it's being posted on social media and being re-discovered. The total number of unique views as of this writing is 2,330,401.
Hello once more!! I frequent social media sites a lot and within the last several days I've been seeing a lot of video sharing of a certain Ray Stevens music video from 2012 called "Grandpa Voted Democrat". This is one of numerous political comedy videos released by Ray Stevens during what I refer to as his 'political phase' for lack of a better description. It started out of the blue in the final months of 2009 when a video single titled "We The People" hit YouTube and from there it took off like a rocket, as the saying goes. Ray found himself performing in a number of high profile political rallies and events throughout 2010...even appearing on several cable news television programs and talk radio programs.
He found himself back in Branson, Missouri performing a series of concerts at The Welk Theater on the strength of the political music videos. The concerts were broken in two halves in which the first half was a traditional concert filled with Ray's numerous serious and novelty recordings while the second half was strictly a political show where he performed a number of songs that gained their popularity through YouTube.
This videography lists the politically themed music videos, their release date, and unique view count rounded to the nearest hundred thousand or million depending on the level of unique views. In case you were wondering the letter 'K' stands for thousand and the letter 'M' stands for million. As an example: 2010's "Caribou Barbie", a music video about Sarah Palin, has received an estimated 648,000 unique views. 2014's "If You Like Your Plan" has received an estimated 454,000. I'm not posting exact numbers. I've highlighted in bold the music videos that have gotten more than a million unique views and italicized those with more than two million.
1. We The People; 12/11/2009 5.6 M
2. Caribou Barbie; 3/11/2010 648 K
3. Throw the Bums Out; 3/22/2010 1.3 M
4. Come to the U.S.A.; 5/13/2010 10 M
5. The Global Warming Song; 6/29/2010 1.2 M
6. God Save Arizona; 8/4/2010 1.1 M
7. Obama Budget Plan; 4/25/2011 5.2 M
8. Mr. President - Mr. President; 9/27/2011 3.5 M
9. Obama Nation; 7/23/2012 1.4 M
10. Grandpa Voted Democrat; 11/3/2012 2.2 M
11. If You Like Your Plan; 9/22/2014 454 K
12. Nero Fiddled; 10/10/2014 62 K
13. You Didn't Build That; 5/19/2015 401 K
As you can see by looking at the list of Ray Stevens YouTube political comedy music videos almost all of them have well over 100,000 unique views and several more have over 1,000,000. The only politically themed music video to not reach 100,000 or more is 2014's "Nero Fiddled". It's a moving and powerful music video. I'm sure some may have thought it too dramatic or heavy handed and that may have played a role in it's on-line performance...but it's hard to really tell because Ray emerged with "Dear America" a couple of years later. That recording wasn't politically based but it was just as powerful as "Nero Fiddled" and "God Save Arizona". "Dear America", by the way, sits with a little over 363,000 unique views as of this writing. It hit YouTube on September 6, 2016...a couple of months before the Presidential election of Donald Trump. I didn't include it in the list of political music videos because it's a patriotic song. A lot of people want to blend patriotism with their political beliefs but in my opinion those are two separate things.
Anyway, as you can see, I decided to embed "Nero Fiddled" in this blog entry. Ray appears with his back to the camera...and that may have been another reason this particular video clip didn't break loose like the others did.
Now, then, in a much more lighter mood...here's the video clip that's found new life on social media...2012's "Grandpa Voted Democrat"...
Oh it's me once again!! Yes, this is November 7th...not exactly "election eve" this early in the morning...but the build up to Election Day 2016 should get into full swing later this afternoon/evening. I title this blog entry for the upcoming Election Day tomorrow (November 8th) but there have been millions of people casting ballots for several weeks thanks to early voting. The one and only Ray Stevens cast his vote early.
For those that hadn't been paying too much attention on all things politics there's definitely been a shift in opinion polls. Clinton doesn't exactly have a commanding lead anymore but...
Disturbing could be the best adjective or baffling could be another but the national sampling of likely voters continues to have Clinton leading by a couple percentage points. It's baffling considering the unethical baggage she and her spouse, Bill, carry around from 30+ years in public office and it's disturbing that there are people out there that apparently are going to turn a blind eye to the scandal-plagued Clinton's and vote them back into the White House.
Yes, I choose to use the word "them" because it'll be a third term for the Clinton's. Yeah, I know it isn't technically a third term since it's Hillary as the candidate but come on, it's Bill and Hillary, or, Hillary and Bill, or Billery as they were referred to in the early years of the internet...it's a third term regardless.
The topic of voter fraud/voter suppression is often a hot topic and even though it's not entirely likely voter fraud issues are going to play a part in this election cycle it's something that shouldn't be pushed to the side as something that couldn't happen. The action to silence those that bring up the very real issue of election antics is something else that I'd like to comment on. Nationally there's been a big ordeal made concerning Trump's consistent arguments about there being a "rigged system". He's under attack for reminding people to be aware of suspicious activity and report it to the people at the election site. Is there anything sinister about such an alert? I don't think so...but many election board officials think it incites suspicion in the election process, period.
Keeping within the same topic there's a certain YouTube video from Ray Stevens that has crossed into the million unique views stratosphere. "Grandpa Voted Democrat" has gotten 1,025,860 unique views so far and this meteoric rise is, of course, tied into this being election season. The video had been in a resurgence since "rigged system" became part of the election dialogue and on Sunday the video had gotten more than 995,000 views and so it more or less steam rolled into the 1,000,000 plateau rather strongly.
In an effort to keep things in perspective, though, this YouTube video
is 4 years old. Originally meant as a lead-in to the 2012 elections (the
video debuted on YouTube on November 3, 2012) this video, as most of
his other politically themed releases, have the ability to remain
entertaining in spite of the content being topical and in the moment.
This can be credited entirely to the natural gifts of Ray Stevens in
crafting a song either through the lyrics or the arrangement or, in the
case of video, his visual performance. The topicality of the songs seem to remain relevant in nearly any election cycle. The songs/videos that he's released about Obama can easily be applied to Hillary: It's a different person but it's the same unethical agenda. Also...let's not forget that Obama Care is crumbling, if only from a mathematics stand-point, but if Hillary's elected she'll keep it in place and "force it" to work.
From the 2014 election cycle comes this entertaining slice of political comedy, "If You Like Your Plan", as Obama's promises of everyone having health care in the private sector will not see any changes or spikes in premiums and deductibles as a result of Obama Care. Electing Hillary Clinton will most surely continue this path of health insurance destruction. Also not to be forgotten is the fact that the ones that drafted Obama Care in 2009 and the Congress that passed it into law on a party line vote in 2010 designed it to where the most negative aspects of the law wouldn't kick in until 2017...after Obama's vacated the White House and the next President steps in.
Yes, oh yes, it's me once more! It may seem like an eternity but it's only been half a year (!) since I've blogged much about a certain music video from Ray Stevens titled "If You Like Your Plan".
On a personal note my healthcare provider, starting in January 2015, had implemented an out of pocket deductible. In years past I never had to meet any kind of out of pocket deductible in order for my insurance to pay on my prescriptions. However, thanks to Obamacare, I now have to meet a deductible (for individual coverage) and it's already set at a specific amount. It's in the $1,500 range! Some may wonder what my complaint is...it looks like a cheap deductible on the surface, yes?
My prescriptions are through mail-order and they're of the 90-day supply and so I only have to re-fill three to four times a year because each re-fill lasts roughly 3 months. Since there's 12 months in a calendar year and because they've added an out of pocket deductible to my plan I'd pay, in total, a little more than $600 a year...that isn't nowhere near the deductible amount, right?
So, in my situation, I'd be paying for my prescriptions out of pocket all the time because I'd never meet the health insurance's deductible in a calendar year.
Thank you Obama...my healthcare plan changed and I had no say in it whatsoever!!
In one of my last blog entries containing a mention of the music video (from October 2014) it had vaulted past the 30,000 unique view total. The video has continued to find audiences over the last 5 and a half months and currently it's been seen by 88,225 people. This is, of course, a pick-up of more than 50,000 unique views over the course of half a year...
A couple of things to keep in mind is that it had been Ray's first politically-driven comedy music video in more than half a year and so a lot of momentum had cooled down considerably.
"If You Like Your Plan" came from out of nowhere on September 22, 2014...but I find it a timely message...
His previous politically driven music video had been the tale of how "Grandpa Voted Democrat" on November 3, 2012 and so it had been closer to 2 full years between the release of that music video and "If You Like Your Plan" in September 2014.
"Grandpa Voted Democrat", still being discovered, has gotten 602,543 unique views so far.
One of the things that I continue to believe is the reason for "If You Like Your Plan" not reaching the 100,000 level is the lack of strong social media publicity...the video came from out of nowhere but it had been nearly 2 years since the last political comedy video. So, yes, in terms of the internet and the immediacy factor the hiatus of nearly 2 years is an eternity.
He followed "If You Like Your Plan" with another music video, the amazing "Nero Fiddled", a video in which Ray appears with his back to the camera the entire time...sawing away on the fiddle as Rome burns. Photos of political figures in Congress and in entertainment and images of war-torn areas all over the globe appear throughout.
The song's lyrics are amazing, too, and it's a slice of heavy commentary criticizing the policy of the Obama Administration when it comes to the ay in which they prioritize certain issues. The main focus of the song is the criticism of Obama reacting in a lax manner during a time of urgency, for example, or reacting too quickly to a situation before thinking things through. The phrase "Rome burns" is used strictly as a metaphor and it's being used to compare rioting and other chaotic events that had taken place during Obama's time in the Oval Office.
The video's arrival on YouTube, less than a month after "If You Like Your Plan", could have cut into the publicity that the bouncy "If You Like Your Plan" may have enjoyed but in hindsight "Nero Fiddled" didn't exactly capture a large audience (compared to Ray's other music video releases). It debuted on YouTube on October 10, 2014. It had only been something like a week and a half from the release of "If You Like Your Plan" in late September of 2014 before "Nero Fiddled" premiered.
By the latter half of 2014 Ray had moved on to promoting his gospel CD, titled Ray Stevens Gospel Collection, Volume One; and his memoir, Ray Stevens' Nashville. He promoted these projects heavily and so "Nero Fiddled" didn't get much coverage and "If You Like Your Plan" faded a bit as a result of the heavier attention being focused on those 2 projects.
To date neither song has appeared on any CD...yet! For the time being they're music video exclusives.
Ray may have another political CD on the horizon...but that's just my guess. On his current CD, Here We Go Again!, there's an Obama song on it called "You Didn't Build That". Oh how I'd love to see it transformed into a music video if only for added publicity of the CD! You can purchase the Mp3 single at Amazon by clicking HERE. It's track 9 on the 12 song CD.
For those that read this particular blog entry and don't feel like searching for "Nero Fiddled" or have never even heard of the song/music video until today then click the video embed and watch it...or listen to it...one or the other...
The video's gotten 34,285 unique views and that indicates, to me, that it may be a bit too strong for some but it's an awesome song and video in my opinion. It may have been too strong for social media publicity, too, because very little became of the video's existence after it's initial splash of unique views on debut day. The video begins with a disclaimer and believe it or not the inclusion of a disclaimer actually got some people in a frenzy early on.
I'd seen commentary (long since scrubbed and therefore no longer visible) that blasted Ray for even putting out a video requiring a Viewer Discretion disclaimer. Let me say that the people that have those kinds of comments, in my opinion, have no appreciation for Ray's creativeness or his multiple talents since they want him to limit his output to certain kinds of songs and to never offer anything different...but I'm a different kind of fan.
On this fan created blog page I celebrate all sides of Ray Stevens' career...I don't limit myself to maybe less than a handful of his recordings and ignore everything else he's recorded. So many others do that, though. I've always argued that if you only spotlight a couple of his songs over and over and over the general audience is going to assume that he's only had a couple of hit recordings...but he's placed more than 40 recordings on the charts but yet to focus on 3 or 4 of those 40+ hits does a huge disservice, I think.
His talent goes far beyond camel noises, affected voices, and Tarzan yells and I'm dedicated to making sure that the people that read my blog entries are made well aware of Ray's talents and his variety of music styles and perhaps learn a lot about Ray that they didn't know before coming across my blog page. Although I love his comical talents I also equally enjoy his non-comical recordings, too.
Hello all...although the Ray Stevens music video "If You Like Your Plan" obtained more than 30,000 unique views a couple of days ago I wanted to highlight this in the title of a blog entry and so there you have it. In one of my other blog posts I mentioned that the video had gotten 30,572 views...it's now sitting at 31,809 for a pick-up of 1,237. As I've mentioned several times since the video's debut a month ago on September 22, the subject matter of Obamacare is going to forever be a topic throughout the rest of Obama's time in the White House (through late January 2017!). Obamacare may not be issue #1 or issue #2 on a national level (therefore getting less coverage than before) but it'll forever be an issue of the Obama Administration and so the music video is going to remain timely as the months and years go by.
On the heels of "If You Like Your Plan" there's the ballad "Nero Fiddled". It just keeps getting better the more and more you listen to it. I thought the song was great on first listen but some people need to hear a song several times before it really connects with them. This particular video has gotten 16,760 views since it's October 10th debut. It's arguably the more popular of the 2 YouTube videos at the moment if you consider that in the same time span that seen "If You Like Your Plan" pick up 1,237 additional unique views, "Nero Fiddled" picked up 2,062.
Be on the lookout for an appearance by Ray Stevens on Geraldo's Fox News Channel program in late November. Ray posted on his Facebook page that he taped the interview and it's set to air in late November 2014. Judging by the post, which features a picture of Ray and Geraldo, Ray is going to talk about...Elvis!?! Perhaps that's just a joke...but time will tell. I asked why the interview is taped so long in advance...there's not been a reply as of yet. Of course, as you know, Fox News Channel (like the other 24/7 cable news channels) reports 'breaking news' a lot of the time...and it's unlikely any pre-taped interviews make the national airwaves if it doesn't relate to the current day's news cycle and so, with that in mind, I'm not going to hype up a future Geraldo appearance that much but I wanted to at least make mention of it. The more closer we get to late November and the more that it looks like the appearance is to definitely take place the more I'll post reminders about it.
Have you all heard about the most recent voter fraud?? This time, apparently, voter machines in Illinois have given votes for Republican candidates to Democrats...it's a murky story that I've only read a little bit about but as soon as I seen the headline on a social media site I instantly thought of this modern-day Ray Stevens classic with over half a million unique views (522,789)...
I came across a new interview from Ray Stevens a few minutes ago while looking through Twitter updates. The interview is located Here and it's from Nashville.com. Ray's asked about political issues but there's also questions about his earliest recordings, the 9-CD Encyclopedia project from earlier this year, and an upcoming project of cover songs done up in Bluegrass fashion that I can't wait to hear!
In the meantime, "Grandpa Voted Democrat" looks as if it'll reach 100,000 views by day's end for at this point in time the latest total number of views are 93,952...knocking on the door of 94,000...at this pace it may reach the 100,000 mark later this afternoon or evening. I'm hoping this will not be an election that'll be dragged out for hours upon hours...but pundits and commentators are all predicting that nobody will know who the President will be until the overnight hours or later. I certainly hope it's more quicker than that!
The day is finally here...Election Day 2012...anyone anxious, nervous, worried, cautious, optimistic, pessimistic? The latest Ray Stevens on-line video, "Grandpa Voted Democrat", is nearing the 100,000 plateau as I write this blog entry! The most recent unique view total is 91,294.
On this day I decided to provide links to several of Ray's music video releases as well as couple of digital downloads as a sort of last minute reminder of why I feel Obama and those in Congress who follow his lead need voted out of office since a lot of them are up for re-election.
New Normal Mp3 "New Normal" is a song that predicts a bleak future should Obama get re-elected...it tells of a homeless guy who fell victim to what's popularly referred to as the 'new normal' when it comes to the economy and the general acceptance by those in charge that the economy will never see the kinds of growth it did during much of the '90s and early 2000's. "Cap'n Trade the Pirate" is simply too irresistible to leave on the CD without much fanfare. It should've become a music video...maybe it will in 2013...but the song is about Obama and many of the left-wing radicals and the diabolical cap and trade energy concept.
Lastly, I decided to post a link to Ray's latest music video...
I was debating whether or not to call this blog entry Ray Stevens and the politics of Humor or Ray Stevens and the humor of Politics. I decided to go with the former rather than the latter because I don't particularly find politics to be funny...but there are many ways to find humor within politics and that's what Ray's been doing the last three years. It all started in late November 2009 with the release of "We The People", a song that criticized the ObamaCare bill which hadn't been signed into law at that point. A music video emerged soon after in December 2009 on You Tube...and from that point forward Ray's mostly been issuing politically oriented music and videos. A 2010 CD/Mp3 release, We The People, arrived in the summer of 2010. Several music videos were put together from songs on the 2010 project...a project that features 22 songs.
Earlier this year Ray issued a book titled Let's Get Political which features political essays written by both Ray and his songwriter/business associate, Buddy Kalb. The book also contains the lyrics to all the songs on both his 2010 and 2011 projects. Unfortunately the book was never publicized too heavily and is mostly known to those who either visit this blog on a frequent basis or visit Ray's web-store and are familiar with their items. It isn't a book in the traditional sense where there's hundreds or thousands of pages and a million chapters...it's much like a standard 75-80 page paperback book one might pick up and read in one sitting in the waiting room at a hospital or in the lobby of an airport. The book's pages aren't numbered, though. His latest release, "Grandpa Voted Democrat", tells the story of how collecting the names of people no longer living were being used in numerous voter fraud scandals. If one looks at the song's title you'd think it would be a song about how a grandfather's staunch political views but when you hear the song you'll learn about this bizarre chain of events that saw a grandfather "vote" Democrat.
The Grandpa Voted Democrat Mp3 is available at Ray's web-store for 99 cents. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, the song comes from Spirit of '76 and it, too, can also be purchased in Mp3 format for those who don't want to have a CD copy. The songs from the 2011 CD that hadn't been made into music videos are: "Mi Casa Su Casa", "Cap'n Trade the Pirate", "News Machine", "November Storm", and "New Normal". The CD has 11 songs and so, of course, that means 6 of the 11 have been released on-line as music videos: "God Save Arizona", "The Skies Just Ain't Friendly Anymore", "Obama Budget Plan", "Mr. President - Mr. President", "Obama Nation", and the just released "Grandpa Voted Democrat".
Hello all the Ray Stevens fans...it's a very, very early Monday morning...one day before the big election of 2012. Now, of course, since all of us know that Ray's contemporary music has a political overtone and he has a brand new music video available as well, my blog entries will be decidedly political, too, leading up to the election tomorrow. After the election comes and goes I'll resume the Golden LP Series of blog entries I've been working on and pick up where I left off...but for now I've embedded "Grandpa Voted Democrat" once again...
The music video's obtained more than 45,000 views in less than 2 days time. The total so far is 45,856 views. For those familiar with You Tube you'll recall that the site was experiencing technical issues the very day that Ray's new music video was uploaded. It was described by some as an upload server issue of some sort. This no doubt effected the availability of many newly uploaded videos on Saturday and it also effected the unique views of videos, too, as the site was basically running slow (if connecting at all). When you do a video search at You Tube for Ray Stevens + Grandpa Voted Democrat the results page will show up and you'll see the most up to date unique view count for Ray's video. However, as of now, when you click the video and the video's page opens up, because You Tube was having server issues for so many hours on Saturday and into early Sunday morning, the view totals for this particular video were affected dramatically.
On the video's You Tube page it shows it has 17,496 views but yet when you do a site search for the video it shows the video has 45,856 views. That has me believing that more than 26,000 views had been obtained during You Tube's technical problems on Saturday but those numbers haven't been applied to the totals on the video's main page. It's the only way to explain such a dramatic discrepancy in the numbers. Since this kind of thing had never happened before with any of Ray's other music videos I wonder how long it'll be before the total number of views on the video's main page are brought up to date.
Good Saturday evening Ray Stevens fans! As I was putting together the previous blog entry about his 1980 comedy album, Ray released a brand new music video on You Tube. The video's been available for a little more than an hour...released on a Saturday evening no less...but it's gotten more than 300 unique views in it's short time on the internet and I'm sure it'll garner thousands upon thousands of views in the hours and days leading up to Election Day 2012 this Tuesday. The brand new video, "Grandpa Voted Democrat", is embedded below. The song comes from Ray's Spirit of '76 CD. Spread the video around as you would his other music video releases. The message in the video revisits a voter fraud scandal where names of deceased people were credited as legitimate voters in an effort to falsify an election result.
Ray opens the video speaking directly to the viewer about the importance of voting. There have been rumblings here and there that Obama supporters are
possibly going to use a voter fraud accusation or other similar tactics
and make it appear that voters were "disenfranchised" in some way, a
word that's grossly over-used by Democrat operatives to cast suspicion
on any election whose results are not to their liking.
