Sam Roberts Band "Last Crusade"

I was listening closely to a segment on NPR week or so ago and I wondered if the folks behind the scenes did this intentionally, or if it's just a coincidence that only a record nerd would catch.

NPR was talking to an expert on Syria, Russia and Vladimir Putin, about the recently published editorial by Putin in the New York Times.  The expert was explaining Russia's relationship with Syria, and Putin's possible motivations for his actions, alliances and the editorial.

After talking about the economic interests Russia has in Syria, and about the, ahem, ego involved in positioning Russia as a world power, the conversation wound around to something I hadn't really thought about.

The expert pointed out that the Syrian rebellion is populated by many hard-line Islamists.  Given Russia's history with Afghanistan and Chechnya, Putin is likely to be extremely reticent to find himself embroiled in another fight with Islamic rebel force.

The conversation concluded, and, as is the norm for NPR, a piece of bumper music started to play, as a transition to the next segment.

I recognized the groove, as it's was a) a little heavier than the pieces NPR usually uses, and b) sounded like something MVY would play.

Hey, it IS something MVY would play.  Does play.  What is it?  I got it: Sam Roberts!

And then I put the figurative breaks on.  Are they fucking with me?  Or is this a coincidence?

Do they know that they have just ended a segment discussing a political leaders reluctance to go to war against Muslims with a song called "The Last Crusade"? 

It's a pretty loaded reference---Muslims and The Crusades.

They only played the music bed.  So there was no lyrical reference that a person who didn't know the song could latch onto.  If it were intentional, it was for insiders only.

Or it was just a weird coincidence and they just have a barrel full of cool-music bumpers, and it's me who's making the connection.


Sidenote:  I was searching NPR.org to see if I could find the original audio referenced above and got really cracked up.  I took a screen shot, so you'd see I'm not kidding.  Note that I searched for "Putin Editorial" and the first return makes perfect sense.  But the second choice cracked me up.  Again, I'm not sure if the internal-mechanics geeks at NPR are fucking with me, or if it's just funny luck.

See the article and the Blobfish.



Hear the song on Youtube.