Everyone is voting for Jack
Cause he’s got what all the rest lack
Everyone wants to back — Jack
Jack is on the right track.
‘Cause he’s got high hopes
He’s got high hopes
Nineteen Sixty’s the year for his high hopes.
Come on and vote for Kennedy
Vote for Kennedy
And we’ll come out on top!
Oops, there goes the opposition – ker –
Oops, there goes the opposition – ker –
Oops, there goes the opposition – KERPLOP!
K–E–DOUBLE N–E–D–Y
Jack’s the nation’s favorite guy
Everyone wants to back — Jack
Jack is on the right track.
‘Cause he’s got high hopes
He’s got high hopes
Nineteen Sixty’s the year for his high hopes.
Come on and vote for Kennedy
Vote for Kennedy
Keep America strong.
Kennedy, he just keeps rollin’ – a –
Kennedy, he just keeps rollin’ – a –
Kennedy, he just keeps rollin’ along.
Kennedy was good friends with Frank Sinatra, who sang this version of his song “High Hopes” during Kennedy’s 1960 election campaign as a theme song for his candidacy, encouraging his fans to vote for Kennedy. Sinatra also organized and performed at Kennedy’s inaugural gala. Though their friendship ended in 1962 after the FBI warned Kennedy of Sinatra’s ties to the mob, Sinatra had a lasting positive impact on Kennedy’s public image— combatting the president’s “‘soft’”* reputation as a Democrat and making him seem (by association with Sinatra) more masculine. Their friendship was also one of the many ways the president maintained a presence in Hollywood and the media during his life.
After JFK’s assassination, there were songs written in reaction to his death. The following noteworthy one is called “Zapruder’s Film,” by Mick Farren and John Lancaster, was written in 1995:
The mass intoned to muffled drums The child and the black horse comeIn that pink haloed vapored brain
A hope that never comes again
An innocence is crushed beneath
Dark shadows that deny belief
And down the years no time to kill
Zapruder’s film is rolling still
And whom and why and what it tolls
Goes gunmen on a grassy knoll
Bright day back seat Cadillac
Our passion cannot roll it back
Or any doubt we write the end
No golden age, no gold to lend
And down the years no time to kill
Zapruder’s film is rolling still
Head jerks forward, head jerks back
Triangulation, planned attack
Concrete basement, lips are sealed
And ruthless men have cut their deals
And we will never trust again
The public masks of ruthless men
And down the years no time to kill
Zapruder’s film is rolling still
And echoes print that awful sound
And still they violate the wounds
The king has fallen, harvest fails
We enter time of guns and jails
A lifetime of no truth unfolds
An image of a head explodes
And down the years no time to kill
Zapruder’s film is rolling still
Zapruder’s film is rolling still
* White, Mark. Kennedy: A Cultural History of an American Icon. A&C Black, 2013.