Song of the Day 6/18: Vince Vance and the Valiants, “Bomb Iran”

I’m old enough to remember when John McCain caused a stir on the campaign trail in 2007 when someone asked about his stance on Iran and he jokingly sang “bomb, bomb, bomb” to the tune of “Barbara Ann”. Skip ahead 18 years and that joke is about to become official policy.

The gag was an old one even when McCain repeated it. Back in 1980, during the hostage crisis triggered when Jimmy Carter let the Shah into the U.S. for cancer treatment, Vince Vance released this parody record that almost made Billboard’s Hot 100 – it reached No. 101.

Vance, whose real name is Andrew J. Franichevich, has been the manic frontman of his New Orleans-based band since the mid-’70s. He later had a bona fide hit with a holiday song called “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – NOT the Mariah Carey hit – which entered the country charts six different years in the ’90s. His song predated hers by several years, so he filed a lawsuit, though the tunes shared nothing but their title.