Song of the Day 9/13: The Decemberists, “Valerie Plame”

Valerie Plame, the former CIA agent who was controversially outed by the Bush administration in 2003, left Washington for New Mexico a few years back and is now running for Congress. She released an attention-grabbing campaign ad this week that set the internet abuzz. She’s a long way from her goal — the primary in her district has nine other Democrats vying for the seat — but if she does, she has a ready-made campaign song thanks to the Decemberists, who released this single in August 2008, just in time for election season.

Decemberists songwriter Colin Meloy said her name caught his ear one day during Congressional hearings into the affair, and a press release at the time said “the song is an amorous tribute to the onetime CIA operative … written from “the point-of-view of one of Plame’s inside contacts upon discovering her true identity.” In case Meloy is still interested, Plame is now divorced from her then-husband, diplomat Joe Wilson.