The master guitarist opens this vigorously partisan gem of gritty picking and black humor with a real country-funk howl: "Mutt Romney Blues," sung from the strapped-to-the-carroof view of the Romney family hound. But Election Special is protest music delivered with a patriot's gifts – the American-roots beauty and expert fire in Ry Cooder's playing – and long memory. His mocking, fearful take on current events in "The Wall Street Part of Town" and "The 90 and the 9" is eerily close to the suffering and inequity in the old blues and folk covers on Cooder's early LPs. The history repeating itself here shouldn't happen to a dog.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”