A lot of people recoil from overtly political songs. Ry Cooder (slide guitarist, Buena Vista Social Club major-domo and custodian of Woody Guthrie before he was fashionable) doesn't care. The first world is in dire straits and it's all the fault of Republicans – architects of Guantánamo and unfeeling people who tie their dogs to the roofs of their cars then drive off (Mutt Romney's Blues). Going To Tampa is a sniggering country tune that imagines a National Rifle Association woman talking dirty to a Tea Party man; Cold Cold Feeling encapsulates the loneliness of President Obama as an embattled blues.