Faulty Intelligence
“Faulty Intelligence” is the latest CD from singer-satirist Roy Zimmerman. The title has an artful ambiguity but there’s no mistaking Zimmerman’s point of view. His wickedly inventive original songs take George Bush and company to task for the “Faulty Intelligence” which has led us to war in Iraq, and for the greater lapses which have inflamed the Culture and Class Wars. The CD features eighteen tuneful lampoons. Highlights include a lesson in “Creation Science 101,” the bawk-along “Chickenhawk” and a plaintive plea to “Abstain With Me.” “I’m an abstract impressionist,” Zimmerman says in “Saddam Shame” after a shaky impersonation of Donald Rumsfeld. He also does Elvis, Popeye and Al Green on this album, not to mention an ape gone berserk and a flock of terrified chickens. But the humor has a bite. “It was funny when ’No Child Left Behind’ was Bush’s education policy,” says Zimmerman. “Now that it’s his recruitment strategy, it’s gotten serious.” Roy Zimmerman has been writing satirical songs for twenty years. He’s shared the stage with George Carlin, Bill Maher, Kate Clinton, Dennis Miller, Sandra Tsing Loh, kd lang, Andy Borowitz and Paul Krassner, and played a series of shows swapping songs with The Pixies' Frank Black. Zimmerman founded and wrote all the material for the satirical folk quartet The Foremen, who recorded for Warner Reprise throughout the Nineties. “Faulty Intelligence” is his fifth solo album. “I hope it gets good reviews,” he says, “but mostly I hope it gets denied under oath by Karl Rove.”