Stressed about the election? Try this Kansas-centric playlist.

Columnist Max McCoy shares his Kansas-based Election Playlist for Reflector readers. (Max McCoy illustration/Kansas Reflector)

With just two weeks and change left before Election Day, it seems a good time to release my election playlist. I don’t know about you, but it feels like full-time business just keeping up with the news. So consider this a way to take a 39-minute break from the stress of choosing the leader of the free world.

Compilations of this sort have been around for a while, and on the national level none is better or more inclusive than NPR’s National Anthem , in which “a song isn’t just a song — it’s shorthand for an idea.” I agree. Listen to the words of “Born in the USA” — I mean, really listen to them — and the idea Bruce Springsteen is different than the feel-good chorus might suggest.

Here I’ve aimed to share songs that I actually listen to and which mostly have some connection to Kansas, not just cuts to fit a theme. While there’s a fair amount of subjectivity, because my tastes are probably not going to be your tastes, there is enough substance that you may want to give a listen even if the genres aren’t what you’re used to.

00:00

“Prelude to All American Girl,” Jermaine Wilson, mayor of Leavenworth, Kansas, on Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m Not Broken (Live from Topeka Correctional Facility),” 2024.

Wilson, who served three years for drug possession at the state penitentiary at Lansing, is the first voice you hear on Etheridge’s album, recorded at TCF, the state prison for women.

“Even though I lost my freedom,” Wilson says, “I discovered my purpose.”

Wilson has a positive message, that you can’t move to the next chapter of your life if you keep reading the last one. It’s time to begin anew.

02:39

Etheridge, “ An Unexpected Rain,” 2024.

In the middle of “Live from TCF,” Etheridge gives us this autobiographical and bluesy ballad about experience and loss. When she hits the lines “I’ve come so far / in my Kansas dancing shoes” the inmates cheer. The song has a shimmery feel, like a candle in the dark.

Etheridge, a Leavenworth native and a Grammy-winning artist, was following in the footsteps of Johnny Cash, who shook up both music and politics by recording a live album at California’s Folsom Prison in 1968. Etheridge’s album was released on Sun, the Memphis label that also given Cash and Elvis Presley their starts.

10:44

Woody Guthrie, “(If You Ain’t Got the) Do, Re, Mi,” 1940.

This song from “Dust Bowl Ballads” laments that the paradise of California is only for those who have the dough to escape Kansas. The recording holds up surprisingly well, with Guthrie’s clear and knowing voice dropping a universal truth between some bouncy guitar riffs.

It is not my favorite of Guthrie’s songs, but I can’t bring myself to include the anthemic “This Land is Your Land” because the title was appropriated by tone-deaf Missouri Senator Josh Hawley in sponsoring a bill to outlaw foreign ownership of American land.

13:16

Bruce Springsteen, “Jeep — the Middle,” 2021.

Okay, this one’s not a song, but a Super Bowl commercial. But it’s in the tradition of Super Bowl commercials that became iconic not for selling a product, but for showing us who we are — or who we aspire to be. Ridley Scott’s “1984” Apple ad is one example. Springsteen’s ad, which was filmed at the U.S. Center Chapel in north central Kansas, is two minutes and 10 seconds of the Boss urging us to heal a polarized nation by finding common ground in the middle.

“The middle has been a hard place to get to lately,” Springsteen intones. “Between red and blue. Between servant and citizen. Between our freedom and our fear. Now, fear has never been the best of who we are. And as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few, it belongs to us all.”

There’s never an overt pitch to buy Jeeps in the ad, but there are plenty of cinematic shots of Springsteen wheeling around in a Wrangler on snowy roads near Lebanon, Kansas. I’ve written about Jeeps before , so my connection to the iconic brand will come as no surprise to regular readers. But this ad, coming near the end of the pandemic, gave me hope.

The ad, of course, was polarizing .

But the message of the ad was lost, I think, in the noise coming from extremists on both sides. Setting the ad at a chapel was a message that religion, like freedom, was not the property of one side or another.

If you’re hung up on the fact that Springsteen is hawking a product — but really, is he? — just listen to the audio.

15:26

Springsteen, “The River,” 1980.

There’s no mention of Kansas, but this song about youthful aspirations being crushed by economic realities could be about any small town. It’s just about the most perfect Springsteen song ever, with a mournful harmonica solo and lyrics that could have been taken from a page by Steinbeck.

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true,” Springsteen’s narrator ponders, “or is it something worse?”

It’s a song that reminds us of why we work so hard against sometimes impossible odds — and why love remains when hope has gone.

20:25

Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” 1964.

Another entry that doesn’t specifically mention Kansas, but is meant for all of us. Released 60 years ago, this song is Dylan at the height of his considerable power, capturing the angst of a nation after the assassination of a popular president and on the threshold of one of the most tumultuous decades in American history.

Dylan writes about chances that won’t come again and the need to make way for a new order.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,” Dylan sings, “and don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your road is rapidly aging.”

We are still waiting for some of the changes hinted at in Dylan’s song, still fighting the battles of the Civil Rights movement nearly a lifetime on. In many ways it is the same battle people of conscience have always fought, from since at least the time of Bleeding Kansas. Just because the battle is long does not mean it isn’t worth fighting.

23:38

Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman,” 1968.

This tune, by Jimmy Webb, is likely the world’s most famous unfinished song . It was short, even by AM radio standards, just a couple of verses long, but with an attention-grabbing bass hook and lyrics that made you care about whether this guy hanging from the utility poll is ever going to get the girl.

It is routinely among the best songs ever written. Dylan, in fact, called it the best .

Why include it in an Election Playlist?

Because I remember listening to the song when I was a kid, on a record player at home at Baxter Springs, thinking about my soldier brother and about how he was bound for Vietnam. If you can remember that time then you will recall how ubiquitous the song was and the sense of introspection the music and words created. There’s a similar raw feeling to these times.

25:45

Kansas, “ Carry On Wayward Son,” 1976.

This is the song I once wanted played at my funeral.

OK, still do.

It’s what I listen to when I’m in the mood to get something done that I know might be difficult. The song knocked me over when I first heard it, in an otherwise forgettable 1977 movie called “Heroes” starring Henry Winkler. Sorry, Fonzie.

The song is by Kerry Livgren, a native Topekan who gave the progressive rock band Kansas their two biggest hits. It’s one of those songs that everybody knows and yet is hard to classify. For me, the song is a call to transcend the everyday and embrace work that is truly important.

It also has a killer riff.

31:05

For an alternate take on this rock staple, check out the sister duo Larkin Poe’s bluesy version.

33:46

Jimi Hendrix, “The Star Spangled Banner.” 1969.

What Election Playlist would be complete without the National Anthem?

Here’s my choice. Enjoy.

37:27

Freedy Johnston, “On the Way Out,” 1997.

Don’t know how I missed Johnston before, but I’m a relatively new fan of this Kinsley native who sold the family farm to pay for his band’s second album and pursue a music career in New York. Johnston has variously been described as an Americana songwriter or perhaps an alternative rocker, but whatever you call him, he has something to say.

“On the way out I’m thinking / You get what you take anyway,” Johnston sings to a driving ’90s beat. “On the way out you’re watchin’ / Wonder if I am gonna pay.”

40:16

So there you have it, my play list to get us through to Election Day.

Why does this matter?

Because songs matter. As the folk songwriter Mary Gauthier said in her 2021 book, “Saved by a Song,” music can change the world.

“Here’s how,” Gauthier writes. “A song can change a heart by creating empathy. A changed heart has the power to change a mind. And when a mind changes, a person changes. When people change, the world changes.”

Each of us carries our own playlist inside of us. Think of it as the soundtrack to your life. You’ve had a lifetime of experience to shape it, of listening to WLS as I did late into the night, or going to concerts, or streaming music on your phone. Our playlists change as we evolve. It might be embarrassing to reveal some of our favorite songs — I will admit here to a fondness for the syrupy Carpenters — but by sharing our music, we allow others to glimpse who we really are.

Come Wednesday, Nov. 6, our playlists are likely to change. They will become more joyful, perhaps, or more introspective. Either way, I wish you peace.

Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here .