Song of the Day 6/17: The New Christy Minstrels, “Green, Green”

Post By Alby:

Donald Trump has always been a fuck-up at everything except getting attention, so it’s always fun to see him botch projects in his supposed area of expertise, construction. Take, for example, his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Since its construction in 1923 as a “water mirror” for the Lincoln Memorial, which was dedicated that year, the pool has been plagued by problems, particularly algal blooms – predictable given that it’s an enormous shallow basin that gets very warm in the Washington DC summer.

To be fair, Democratic administrations have tried to fix it and failed, at significant expense.Trump, of course, declared that he alone could solve it, and for barely more than $1 million. His brilliant contribution to the renovation: He demanded the bottom be painted a dark shade of blue he called American Flag Blue.

Just one problem there, Einstein, and it’s not that it cost more like $14 million. This one was identified from jump by a pool guy on social media – a darker color heats the water faster, so algae grows faster. Right on cue, by a week after the pool was filled, the water was a color somewhere between a sour apple Jolly Rancher and Slimer from “Ghostbusters.” The White House poured a wildly insufficient amount of algae-killing chemicals on the problem, which they claimed was Obama’s fault.

If you’ve ever had to tend to a swimming pool, you know this will persist until fall, when light fades and temperatures cool, so tourists will see a vast expanse of green.

“Green, Green” was the first hit for the New Christy Minstrels, clean-cut purveyors of sanitized folk music, spoofed in Christopher Guest’s “A Mighty Wind” as the New Main Street Singers. Written by Barry McGuire, who sang lead, and group founder Randy Sparks, the single reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 in 1963.