LAS VEGAS, N.M. – Conservative demagogues who are familiar with Jim Terr might ask, “Jim, why do you hate America so much?”
Everyone else who has heard Terr’s twisted country tunes about our current national morass might wonder why he isn’t famous yet.
Terr has been kicking around the music and film business ever since he graduated from Northwestern University in the early 1970s with a major in partying and a minor in English literature.
While Terr has written some beautiful mainstream country tunes, he’s best-known for his novelty songs, which take on corporate greed, the NRA, menopause, Walmart, Glenn Beck, day trading, Santa Fe tourists, the American health care system, Joe the Plumber, Texas school board members, global warming, Karl Rove and Facebook.
Have we left anything out?
Oh, yes. Terr has also skewered common grammatical errors, the BP oil spill and NPR correspondent Susan Stamberg’s annual Thanksgiving piece on her mother-in-law’s cranberry relish recipe.
“Believe me,” Terr assured me, “I’m an equal opportunity annoyer.”
Terr, who has lived and worked in Santa Fe for most of his career, is back in his hometown of Las Vegas these days. Terr (rhymes with “burr” – as in burr under the saddle of just about everybody) has been on my radar screen for a couple of decades, mostly because of his profuse letter-to-the-editor offerings, but it was two of his most recent songs that persuaded me I needed to finally meet him.
“The Campaign Finance Song” is a subversive little piece that takes on the fundraising system that keeps members of Congress chasing campaign contributions. Terr’s solution is for each of us to just kick in six bucks and eliminate the possibility of special interest influence.
And “Standard & Poor” examines the economic slide of the upper middle class. “I guess I’ve been downgraded, now I’m standard and poor,” is the money line.
Over coffee and papitas at the Spic & Span cafe, a short walk from his family home, Terr told me that finding targets for satire is as easy for him as tuning in to the news of the day or listening to people talk. His songbook grows thicker every day.
“Since I’ve been in Vegas, I’ve been on a real amped-up song-writing streak,” Terr said. “Sometimes, I write a couple a day.”
It’s not like there isn’t plenty of material out there for a willing satirist, and Terr sees something to get worked up about everywhere he looks.
Indeed, Terr has a stunning array of songs and videos available on his websites, www.jimterr.com and www.bluecanyonsatire.comand on YouTube, where he recently passed 600,000 views. His oeuvre includes a spoof commercial spot for turquoise-encrusted jackalope droppings as well as “Chicken Stock,” a Jewish parody of Woodstock, and a rock ‘n’ roll song about a public health care option accompanied by singing hamsters.
Which is to say he’s not exactly mainstream.
Still, Terr put out a record called, “Please Cut My Song, Mr. Travis” and even though Mr. Travis has not yet complied, Terr hopes to someday write a country hit.
Even though he has been aired on NPR and other nationwide radio broadcasts and he has released a handful of CDs, he says he barely makes a living writing and recording songs. His new CD, unreleased and as yet unnamed, is mostly comedy, only some of it political, and Terr said he’s tried to trim out the most partisan tracks.
“It just cuts back your market to have songs about hating Republicans,” Terr acknowledged.
Even so, the new CD will include “What We Need Is Another Texas President” and “Bosses of the World Unite.”
And, for the record, Terr doesn’t really hate America. He just wants to keep it from flushing down the drain.
“I don’t hate Republicans,” Terr assured me. “I’m anti-demagoguery and mass hysteria and so I attack it when I see it.”
Terr, who is 63, also likes to take a break from politics and just have some fun. Two of his most popular recent releases are “Mama Don’t Send Me to the Big Box Store” and “Do They Have Email in Heaven?” The punch line to that tune, which could be the official anthem of the 2000s, is “cause if not, I don’t want to go.”
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie Linthicum at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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