BBC Radio hunts down Hunter for spoof on Iowa caucuses

By Eric McHenry

When producers for the British Broadcasting Corporation wanted commentary on Iowa politics, they turned to a Boston playwright.

Their choice wasn't as improbable as it sounds. Dan Hunter (GRS'99), director of the BU Playwrights' Theatre and CAS lecturer in creative writing, is an Iowa native. He's enjoyed a recent stint as director of the state's Department of Cultural Affairs and an extended run as its favorite singer-songwriter-satirist -- performing at one time or another in each of Iowa's 99 counties. And he's been sending up the Iowa caucuses every 4 years for the past 20.

So it's no surprise that BBC Radio representatives who called the Des Moines Register two weeks ago looking for someone to do a "three-minute shtick on this year's Iowa caucuses" were told that Dan was their man.

On Saturday, January 22, two days before the caucuses, Hunter went to the WGBH FM studio in Allston and performed a short satirical song he'd written that morning. The next day BBC Radio broadcast the recorded performance on a national news program.

Hunter says he had planned, initially, to dust off one of his ditties from a previous election.

Dan Hunter both wrote and performed "It's Tourist Time in Iowa," a song spoofing the state's presidential caucuses, on January 22. BBC Radio broadcast a recording of it the following day. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

"But I finally realized that it'd be quicker for me to write a new song than to try to find any of the old ones," he says. "So I wrote a new one Saturday morning. I had a lot of fun, because I like that kind of challenge."

The tune he came up with, "It's Tourist Time in Iowa," is lineally descended from one he'd penned several election years ago. But the resemblance is slight, he says. "I had a song of the same name, but all I could remember were three lines, including ŒIt's tourist time in Iowa.' So I rewrote the rest. Even the melody is different."

Composed in punchy couplets, "It's Tourist Time . . ." offers a wry look at the behavior of self-important Iowans and their presidential suitors: "Sound the trumpet and toot your horn. / Strut your stuff in the land of corn. / Be an ethanol corn alcoholic. / ¿Por favor, habla usted bucolic? / It's tourist time . . ."

His preface to the song was no less sardonic: "Yes, Iowa has more hogs than people," Hunter said, "but that's the necessary training for the Iowa caucuses.

"They say that every debate is a cattle show. Well, we know cattle shows in Iowa. I once asked a young farmer if there really was any similarity between a presidential debate and a cattle show. He looked at me and said, ŒOh no, not at all. Showing cattle is serious business.' "

Hunter hasn't yet listened to the recording of his performance -- "I have a hard time doing that," he says. But he found the producer's response, which suggested that future songs and commentary are strong possibilities, pretty gratifying.

"You know, of course, you'll now go onto our contact list," said BBC Radio's Gavin Allen. "That means you'll be plagued by people from the BBC from now on."

"I'll be delighted," Hunter replied. "This is fun for me. And I'm going to call all of my friends in England and tell them to listen."

Allen laughed.

"Really," Hunter said. "Both of them."