With the world still trying to put one foot in front of the other following the Charlie Hebdo tragedy, the last thing people need is a diplomatic dust-up between the US and the French over President Obama’s admittedly poor decision to skip a massive peace rally in Paris last Sunday. In that cleaning up diplomatic dust-ups falls under the purview of the Secretary of State, John Kerry went to France on a mission to heal the rift and to tell France that they have a friend in the US in the most literal way imaginable — with James Taylor and the song “You’ve Got A Friend”, which you can see in the above video.
In case you need a refresher course on the lyrics, Taylor’s song begins thusly:
When you’re down and troubled and you need a helping hand
and nothing, whoa, nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me and soon I will be there
to brighten up even your darkest nights.You just call out my name, and you know where ever I am
I’ll come running to see you again.
Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call and I’ll be there, yeah, yeah,
you’ve got a friend.
The overall message is the point of the thing, but those lyrics are slightly ironic considering the no-show. With that said, though, it’s not like Kerry had a lot of options. Something tells me that the Pixar origins of Randy Newman’s “You Got A Friend In Me” wouldn’t have sat well with the French.
Via Vox