Audio Share

Tom, Dick, and Lyndon: A Presidents' Day Playlist

”Schoolhouse Rock” has nothing on the musical theater catalogue.

Dan Stahl

Dan Stahl

| Broadway | Off-Broadway |

February 19, 2018

Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson (center) in the original Broadway production of Hamilton.
(© Joan Marcus)

This playlist gives you the executive power to turn the third Monday of every February into a political party. Get up to "Sit Down, John"! Party like it's 1933 with FDR busting out his New Deal-io in Annie! So what if Teddy & Alice's "Make This a House" isn't house music? It's White House music. However, just like in American history, sometimes the party does stop, as songs like Ragtime's "President" remind us.

The Presidents' Day playlist spans the ideological and musicological spectrum, from small-government Thomas Jefferson to populist Andrew Jackson to "Slick Willie," from John Adams the president to John Adams the composer. Yes, there's an opera thrown in, because nobody's yet written a musical about Richard Nixon. Until that blessed day, enjoy these tunes.

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