Political Science (song)

"Political Science" is a song written and performed by singer-songwriter Randy Newman on his 1972 album, Sail Away. In going along with the theme of the rest of the album, the song is a satire of a particular part of American culture and history, namely its foreign policies at the time. It is sung from the point of view of an unnamed narrator who thinks very highly of the United States and its culture. He admits the US is not perfect, but wonders why even "our old friends put us down"^[1], especially since "we give them (other countries) money"^[2]. The narrator goes on to say that the US should "drop the big one"^[3] on the rest of the world for various simplistic reasons, most of which have to do with basic cultural or geographic differences (e.g. "Asia's crowded" or "Canada's too cold"^[4]). Finally, the narrator describes the utopia that would occur once the US had bombed everyone (except Australia), saying, "oh how peaceful it would be/we'd set everybody free,"^[5] thus showing the audience how the narrator feels about how free the United States was and what good it could do.

In recent years, artists including Don Henley and Wilco have performed live covers of this song^[6]. In October 2006, Newman performed the song for The Colbert Report's audience after being interviewed by Stephen Colbert^[7]. Newman also rerecorded the song for his 2003 release The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1^[8].