What's on President Bush's iPod? 'My Sharona' and More

By: E&P Staff If you're like most music fans, and you hear that President Bush has an iPod, you naturally want to know what's on it. Tex-Mex? Christian rock? ZZ Top?

Well, Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times has the scoop Monday, finding it loaded mainly with country and mainstream rock/pop. Bush likes to use it when exercising, to help get the ol' heart pumping.

So it's "heavy on traditional country singers like George Jones, Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney," Bumiller reveals, plus Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and John Fogerty's "Centerfield," which was played at Texas Rangers games when Bush was an owner. (He most certainly does not have Fogerty's song "Fortunate Son.") More esoterically, there are selections from great Texas singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo and The Gourds. There are 250 songs in all, many purchased at iTunes.

Then there's a mix of songs downloaded to his iPod by ex-media strategist Mark McKinnon, including "Circle Back" by John Hiatt and "My Sharona," the somewhat salacious 1979 pop hit by The Knack.

Joe Levy of Rolling Stone commented: "What we're talking about is a lot of great artists from the '60s and '70s and more modern artists who sound like great artists from the '60s and '70s. This is basically boomer rock 'n' roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving. What I mean to say is, it's feel-good music.

"The Sex Pistols it's not."