Wham Blam Blam

 

Whaam! -- Roy Lichtenstein (1963)

Seed idea was a diary entry on 3/11/1998: "First line for novel: 'In the old days, there were so many regrets. It became a game to see how many we could get.', and a title idea I had on 3/11/2009: The Game of Regret.  In March 2003 the invasion of Iraq had begun, which was "Mission Accomplished" in 3 years in 2006, but went on for another 15 years. 

The song is more historical than it is political, to wit: 8/31/2010: End of combat mission in Iraq. Obama gives his mile-stone speech ‘Mission Unaccomplished’. Hawks are asserting that our occupation of Iraq for its nation building somehow changed the world for the better, when conceivably, leaving Hussein in power could have preserved the extant Arab ecosystem; the tribal boundaries are still there. Is it possible for them to fade or devolve over generations? (They haven’t in other Islamic nations, e.g. Iran)...

With AI music you have skimpy options on how a song gets produced. The title suggests 70s Bowie, for obvious reasons. This sounds pretty juvenile but it's pretty catchy. Alas, "Did we have a plan?" is a missed opportunity. AI music is burned-in and you can't tell the singer to try a different line.

The Lichtenstein works well. I don't think he'd mind. It's also historical in that it was completed in 1963, but we don't know what month. I'm presuming it was before November.