Hail to the Chief

The song, Hail to the Chief, is the closing song of the soundtrack for Animal Farm and 1984. It is also the ultimate sign of respect to the leader of the government. When you hear this song you think of a strong President who is working in the best interest of his or her constituents. The last line of 1984 inspired my choice of this song for the soundtrack, “He loved Big Brother.” This song doesn’t have any lyrics but it does have a very clear meaning of patriotism. During the entire book Winston is anti-government, but in the end he is proud of the Party for defeating Africa and is proud to be a member of the Party. He gets brainwashed or “cured” from his heretic views in the book which is why he experiences this drastic change of heart. Winston is turned into a perfect citizen of Oceania. During the book he had to force himself to yell at the telescreen during the 2 minutes hate. I’m sure now Winston would have no problem turning red faced from spewing hatred at Goldstein. The patriotism Winston feels is synthetic because he did not choose to follow Big Brother on his own free will. So this song actually may have less authentic meaning to him.