Rickie Lee Jones joins the Idiotarian Chorus—in a big way: The devil and Miss Jones. This is how she hypes her new album to the Guardian; clearly she knows her audience. Flags scare her. People carrying flags—after the US was attacked and the World Trade Center destroyed—were just like Nazis. Having a flag on your car makes you a “fascist.”

“I think 9/11 gave this generation an identity, and its identity is potentially fascist. My skin crawls when I think of the first week after 9/11. I was looking out of the window and there were people marching down the street carrying flags. It reminded me of spontaneous, angry Nazis and I thought, ‘Oh, man, we are in a lot of trouble’. There’s a whole bunch of people who have flags hanging from their cars and who are mistaking fascism for patriotism.”

Talk of bringing democracy to the Middle East is “evil,” but if President Bush had said “I hate ’em and I’m blowing ’em up,” that wouldn’t have been a problem.

“I would have probably made peace with the idea of this rightwing Republican presidency if at any point after we were bombed - because we were devastated, we were terrified and broken-hearted - if he had said, ‘I’m so pissed off, I’m gonna go and blow up the whole fucking Middle East. I hate ‘em and I’m blowing ‘em up’, we would have gone, ‘OK, right on’, but he didn’t. He said, ‘We’re looking for Bin Laden and we’re bringing democracy’. Every single aspect of his response has been evil, thus making us into the evil thing we didn’t know we were. Ffffhgggmm.”

And what would a Guardian story be without a leading question about murdering the President?

Would she be willing to take Bush out for the benefit of democracy? “If I say that, I might get arrested when I go back. And I have to go home.” She’s thinking it out carefully. “I guess the question is, would I kill anyone? And the answer is, no. But would I feel sorry if someone killed him? No, I wouldn’t. It would depend on who killed him, I guess.”

Whatever happened to peace and love, Rickie Lee? (We know what happened to the dope; you did it all and didn’t share.)

Full disclosure: years ago, I auditioned, along with several other well-known LA session musicians, for one of Rickie Lee Jones’s early tours. It was a terrific band; Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, Neil Stubenhaus on bass, Bill Myers on keyboards, and me on guitar.

And Rickie Lee was a total mess. She put sheet music for her songs in front of us, then started playing completely different music and expected us to read her alleged mind. When she did play a song for which we had music, she would immediately depart from the chart, playing verses and choruses out of order and changing the chords.

The audition was a disaster, and she blamed us for it, got very nasty, and ended up pouting and sulking after yelling at us that we were trying to wreck her career. It was an extremely unpleasant experience.

We didn’t get the gig, and I was relieved; working with someone like that as a sideman is one of the worst things about the music business, no matter how well they pay. They will make you miserable beyond your worst nightmares.

And it looks like she hasn’t changed a bit, except now she’s gone political. Aren’t we fortunate to have her insights? (Not.)