MUSIC FOR NOVEMBER 2024
‘MR. SPECIAL’
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Red-scare monger shown above, was a great example of the personality type celebrated (or something) in “Mr. Special.” The brains behind that outfit, though, was McCarthy’s chief counsel during the 1954 Army–McCarthy hearings, Roy Cohn.
And once Cohn has been mentioned, who should come to mind but his most notorious protege — the special-est Mr. Special of them all? His name need not be uttered here (orange you glad you don’t have to read it?), but he in fact was the inspiration for “Mr. Special,” a song that sprouted from a few lines of lyrics I’d been carrying around for years.
Thanks to personifications of the type abundant in all walks of life, it was pretty easy to finish the song (which also owes a certain stylistic debt to the Blue Sky Boys). “Mr. Special” will never be a Billboard No. 1, but the folks that it portrays are all tops in their own personal rankings, so all’s well. Performed here by Day for Night in rehearsal, Sept. 9, 2022.
Hear “Mr. Special” below! Buy it on Bandcamp! And don’t forget to vote!! (“Mr. Special” copyright © 2021 by Douglas L. Hubley. All rights reserved. Day for Night: Doug Hubley, mandolin and vocal. Gretchen Schaefer, guitar and vocal. At top: Sen. Joseph McCarthy in a detail from a photograph by Thomas J. O’Halloran — U.S. News & World Report photograph collection, Library of Congress. At bottom: Doug and Gretchen, 2013.)
