Pitchfork

Photo by Kirstie Shanley

Oklahoma already has an official state song ("Oklahoma", from the musical, natch), a state folk song, and a state country-and-western tune. What they don't have just yet is an official state rock'n'roll song. And that is where you come in.

By order of the Oklahoma state legislature (seriously), you have until November 15 to click on over here and vote for what you think should be the "Official Oklahoma Rock & Roll Song". The ten finalist tunes, all written or performed by Oklahomans, were selected by a panel of Sooner rock scholars. The winner will be presented to the legislature in 2009, and then presumably played at every sporting event and county fair from now through the rapture.

The choice is tough, though. There's Wanda Jackson's immortal "Let's Have a Party", the Ventures' surf rock classic "Walk, Don't Run", JJ Cale's oft-covered "After Midnight", and the All-American Rejects' "Move Along", aka the best Rock Band song EVER. But one tune appears to ring out above the rest on reverb alone: the Flaming Lips' triumphantly saccharine "Do You Realize??" from 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. One wonders just what a wistful rumination on mortality has to do with the 46th state in the union, but hey, it beats the hell outta Three Dog Night's "Never Been to Spain", whose narrator wonders whether it even matters if he was born in Oklahoma or Arizona. Clearly it does!

Speaking of the Lips, their long-delayed film, Christmas On Mars, hits DVD next month and is screening in New York City soon.