Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"

Each day brings more revelations in the Ukraine scandal, a trickle turning into a flood. If I was a TV news producer I'd have set music to introduce segments on the issue. The song I would choose? "Lawyers, Guns, and Money" by Warren Zevon.

It's catchy and the heavy, repetitive riff would draw the audience in. Of course, the subject matter is just perfect. It's a song written from the perspective of a feckless elite American abroad, possibly a member of the intelligence community. His playboy lifestyle keeps getting him in trouble, which means he needs to call his "dad" to send in "lawyers, guns, and money" to save him. It's the ultimate parody of the typical stupid elite failson. I first started digging this song in the Bush II administration, for obvious reasons.

Watching the news today is surreal. I want to laugh, but I can't because the stakes are just too damn high. It all feels like a Le Carre novel if it was adapted into a film by the Coen brothers. Le Carre is brilliant in how he presents the pompous ineptitude of secret agents, and the Coens are the poets of the day to day mediocre stupidity and venality in American life. It's serious business, but it makes me feel a little better to mock the people responsible for it with a little Warren Zevon.