A Song for the Presidential Debate: “Little Boxes” by Walk Off the Earth

Photo: BrendelSignature

Malvina Renolds’ 1962 classic song “Little Boxes” is available for download on Freegal. WOTE does a nice rendition of it.

The song is a satire of the conformity of the suburbs with all the people going to their houses made of “ticky tacky” who all turn out the same. The only difference is the color: there’s a red one, and a blue one, and a yellow one, etc.

Of course, the song needs some updates. Now, they’re big boxes. And you can’t even tell them apart by the color. Last time we sang it, we said “There’s a tan one, and an eggshell one, and a gray one, and another tan one.”

So what does that have to do with the debates? The people in the boxes are the ones the candidates have to talk to. We know the cities are going blue. The countryside is going red. But the people in the tan boxes? What will they do?