New York Post - May 22, 2006
HILLARY IPODHAM CLINTON POLITICAL PLAYER OFFERS PEEK AT HER SONG LIST
By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent
WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't need "Respect" - she's already got it at the top of her iPod playlist.
The surprisingly tech-savvy Clinton mixes Aretha Franklin's 1967 landmark smash hit for the feminist movement into her playlist rotation alongside The Eagles' 1975 Top 5 hit, "Take It to the Limit" ("You know I've always been a dreamer").
In a New York minute, H-Rod can shuffle from the bad boys of rock 'n' roll to the Fab Four in her iPod's massive musical library. She told The Post her iPod has "got like 1,000" songs stored away in its digital memory - offering a rare window into her private life.
Her hit parade is heavy on the mega-hits from the Rolling Stones, The Eagles and The Beatles. Some of her favorites include The Beatles' "Hey Jude," the band's longest-sitting single atop American charts.
"I'm a child of the '60s and '70s," she told The Post. And she has a lot of love for U2's "Beautiful Day" - an upbeat, uplifting single Clinton blares over the speakers moments before she hits the stage to deliver a red-meat stump speech. She's also downloaded the best of Motown and a bevy of classical masterpieces. "I've got everything - a total smorgasbord," she said.
Clinton shared her iPod preferences with The Post before she shredded the iPod generation during a speech earlier this month to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accusing Generation Y of thinking "work is a four-letter word." She was forced to eat her words and apologize for slamming the youngin's as spoiled brats after daughter Chelsea complained about the critique and insisted she and her friends do work hard.
The former first lady received her iPod, a white one, as a birthday gift last October from ex-prez hubby Bill. She cranks it up "whenever I'm in the mood - I'm not an addict."
Clinton said her favorite time to listen is when she's following up on paperwork while she's at home.
"We have one of these devices that you can plug it in and have it played it over speakers, so you don't always have to have it in your ear, which bothers me. After a while, that can get a little irritating," she said.
Like Clinton, President Bush sports an eclectic mix of tunes on his iPod, grooving to The Knack's "My Sharona," John Fogerty's "Centerfield" and Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" along with hits from country crooners George Jones and Alan Jackson. Vice President Dick Cheney stays true his Western roots and tunes his iPod to Johnny Cash.
New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, received his iPod - already programmed with his 100 favorite tunes - as a Father's Day gift in 2004, two months after his teenage daughters, Jessica and Alison, hoodwinked him into ticking off his faves. He grooves to the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong and the Counting Crows - "my daughters have turned me on to some of the '90s music," Schumer boasted.