LL Cool J, Toby Keith Protest Use of Interviews on Palin's Show

In 2008, rockers rallied to prevent the GOP from using their music without permission. Now two musicians are protesting one famous Republican's use of old interviews. LL Cool J wants the record to show that he did not sit down for an interview with former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for the Alaska ex-governor's new Fox News show Real American Stories. Ladies Love Cool James took some heat after ads for Palin's new show teased the Rock Hall nominee as one of her guests. However, the rapper quickly responded on Twitter, "Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW," Gawker writes.

"Stop Using My Song, Republicans!": a guide to disgruntled rockers.

Country singer Toby Keith — another of Palin's advertised guests — has also hinted that he was displeased that an interview he gave a few years was being rebroadcast out of context for Palin's show. It should come as no surprise that Keith was opposed to Palin's reusing his interview: As Rolling Stone previously reported, during the 2008 presidential campaign, while country artists like John Rich were throwing their support behind the McCain-Palin ticket, Keith was one of the few artists in the genre to endorse Barack Obama.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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