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John Jurgensen on Lunch Break has a guide to the theme music of the different Republican presidential candidates: Mitt Romney favors “Born Free” by Kid Rock, while Newt Gingrich sticks with “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor.

Like major-league batters stepping up to the plate, presidential candidates blast theme songs at events to energize their fans and reinforce their messages. But the campaign-trail playlist is prone to occasional repeats (ex-candidate Jon Huntsman used U2′s “Beautiful Day,” as did Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign) and pushback from artists (Tom Petty objected to Michele Bachmann’s playing “American Girl”). Here’s a look at the soundtrack of the 2012 Republican presidential primary campaign.

Mitt Romney

‘Born Free’ by Kid Rock

This Bob Seger-ish ode to autonomy (“free like a river raging, strong if the wind I’m facing”) by the rap-rocker from Detroit is the go-to theme song for campaign events. But Mr. Romney mixes things up on occasion, like when his bus rolled into an Iowa rally last month to the ’80s anthem “Eye of the Tiger.”

Newt Gingrich

‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor

Despite Mr. Romney’s recent use of the “Rocky” hit, Mr. Gingrich has been marching into auditoriums to that song since at least 2009. Lyrics such as “just a man and his will to survive” seem apt ahead of Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, where he’s lately been using “Only in America” by country act Brooks & Dunn.

Ron Paul, Rick Santorum

Largely music-free

Ron Paul signaled defiance in New Hampshire by playing Darth Vader’s theme music from the “Star Wars” films, but he typically forgoes music at rallies. So does competitor Rick Santorum, with some exceptions: Stars of the reality TV show “19 Kids and Counting” opened an event Wednesday with a medley of patriotic songs.

Rick Perry

‘Made in America’ by Toby Keith

The stomping country strains of a native Oklahoman weren’t enough to carry the Texas governor through the race; Mr. Perry folded his campaign Thursday. In the song, Mr. Keith calls for U.S. self-sufficiency: “Breaks his heart seeing foreign cars filled with fuel that isn’t ours.”

—John Jurgensen

By RACHEL DODES

In the French film “Declaration of War,” a star-crossed couple named Romeo and Juliette huddle together in a hospital bed before their 18-month-old son is scheduled to undergo brain surgery. Trying to calm their minds, they say their fears aloud, laughing as they speculate that their baby may be rendered paralyzed, deaf, blind, a dwarf, black, or—quelle horreur!—gay. Soon after, they break into song.

“There’s almost like a social rule that says in this situation you have to be miserable,” says actor Jérémie Elkaïm, who co-wrote the film with director Valérie Donzelli. “But, in fact, you continue to live, almost more intensely.”

“Declaration of War,” opening in the U.S. on Jan. 27, is the latest film that attempts to explore the humorous aspects of one of the least funny circumstances known to man: the illness or death of a loved one. It follows other recently released tragicomedies such as “50/50,” about a young man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) struggling with dating and a spinal tumor, and “The Descendants.” which focuses on a father (George Clooney) who discovers he’s been cuckolded while his wife lays in a vegetative state.

Watch a clip of the French tragi-comic film “Declaration of War” in which a young couple wrestle with their child’s cancer diagnosis. Video courtesy of IFC Films.

The more realistic approach to life-or-death situations reflects “a different generation, and a different generation’s approach,” says Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects, the film’s U.S. distributor. “This isn’t the Hollywood version.”

Shot for about $1.7 million using a Canon 5D camera and a tiny eight-person crew, “Declaration of War” became an unexpected hit in France following the film’s debut at the Cannes Film Festival, with nearly one million admissions, making it the most successful low-budget film there in a decade.

The film was selected as France’s official submission to the Academy Awards in the foreign-language category—a highly unusual feat for an independent film featuring actors that aren’t well known outside of indie circles. But on Wednesday, judging committees unexpectedly cut it when they winnowed the entries down to nine. France is accustomed to being on the short list in this category, and this added to the indignity of the loss last year by its critically acclaimed submission, “Of Gods and Men.”

“France is the only country where it is a major scandal if one of their movies doesn’t get nominated,” says Mr. Sehring, who timed the U.S. release to coincide with the Academy’s announcement of the nominees.

Like “50/50,” which was loosely based on screenwriter’s own bout with cancer, “Declaration of War” was inspired by actual events. Ms. Donzelli and Mr. Elkaïm, who co-star as Juliette and Romeo, found out that their son, Gabriel, had a brain tumor in 2003. After five years of intense treatment, he was declared cancer-free.

Ms. Donzelli and Mr. Elkaïm began talking about using their harrowing experience as way to tell a love story. “We didn’t want the audience to be hostage to a film about pain and tragedy,” says Ms. Donzelli. She who infused the film with spirited dance sequences, original songs and action shots, mostly of the couple cruising around Paris on a scooter.

There are some documentary-like aspects to the film. The hospital scenes were shot at the Gustave Roussy Institute outside of Paris, where Gabriel was treated, and the screenwriters decided to name the surgeon Professor Sainte-Rose, as a tribute to the doctor who actually operated on their son. (Ms. Donzelli asked the doctor to play himself, but he declined, saying that acting wasn’t his forte.) Gabriel, to whom the film is dedicated, appears at the end of the film as an older version of the baby, named Adam in the movie. And like the fictionalized characters Romeo and Juliette, who were ultimately driven apart by the intensity of their situation, Ms. Donzelli and Mr. Elkaïm are no longer a couple romantically, but they still are close collaborators on films. Mr. Elkaïm will star in Ms. Donzelli’s next feature “Main Dans la Main” (“Hand in Hand”) which they were shooting in New York this month.

Write to Rachel Dodes at rachel.dodes@wsj.com

By STEVE DOUGHERTY

Weeks before the release of his latest CD, Dion DiMucci mourned the Jan. 1 death of his harmonizing Bronx homeboy Fred Milano. Together with Milano, Carlo Mastrangelo and Angelo D’Aleo, Dion and the Belmonts rose from neighborhood street corners to the top of the pop charts in the 1950s with songs like “I Wonder Why” and “A Teenager in Love.” Now 72, Mr. DiMucci, who went on to solo stardom with “Runaround Sue,” “The Wanderer” and “Ruby Baby” before releasing his final No. 1 hit, 1968′s “Abraham, Martin and John,” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. He lives in Florida with his wife of 48 years. His latest CD, “Tank Full of Blues,” comes out Tuesday.

Bob Croslin for The Wall Street Journal

Up From the Bronx: Dion DiMucci talks about Aretha Franklin, Bo Diddley, Mick Jagger, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan and his own career.

The Wall Street Journal: You came up when rock ‘n’ roll was still dawning on America, after Elvis and before the Beatles. You rocked the “The Ed Sullivan Show” in a tuxedo. Did you feel torn between two worlds?

Dion: I was the first rock ‘n’ roller signed by Columbia Records. Aretha Franklin was starting there at the same time. They were giving Aretha and me Al Jolson tunes; I was singing “Mammy;” she did “Rock-a-bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody”—they didn’t know what we were about. From the beginning, before I recruited the Belmonts to record with me, [managers] told me to put the guitar down—leaders of groups don’t play guitar. They wanted to give me a nightclub act and book me in the Copacabana. They wanted to put me with corny backing singers—Broadway-trained guys who were great singing “Oklahoma!” but didn’t know from rock and roll. The show business era was — “Hey! How’s everybody doin’ tonight? Hope everybody’s fine!” The rock and roll attitude was —we don’t care how you feel about it; we’re taking you on a trip. “Let’s go!”

Your new album, “Tank Full of Blues,” showcases your love for that music. When did you start filling your tank?

Way back at Columbia, John Hammond [the legendary producer who helped launch the careers of greats from Billie Holiday and Count Basie to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen] pulled me into his office. He had this big grin and said “Dion, you seem to have a flair for the blues.” I left there with an armload of albums by Furry Lewis, Leroy Carr, Fred McDowell—and Robert Johnson. I never wanted to imitate those guys like Mick Jagger did—”I followed her to da stay-shun.” I thought if I did that I’d get killed at the Brooklyn Fox where Howlin’ Wolf and all the greats used to play. I met Bo Diddley at the Fox. He scowled at me and said “Where’d you learn to play blues like that?” I thought he was going to kill me. I said, “I listen to records.” He said, “Me, too.”

What did the Delta blues have to say to a 1960s pop idol?

That music comes direct from God. It’s three chords you can use to express any human emotion. The funny thing is, I could sing about feeling lost and abandoned in a bar and they’d ask me to sing it again. You can sing about how you feel all day and get applause; but if you ever talked like that—oh man, my baby done left me and I feel lost and broken and abandoned and I can’t stop crying—you’d get a fist right in your skull. Blues lets you sing about things you’d never say to a stranger. It feels good to sing about feeling bad.

You were a city kid who grew up in the Bronx; how did you get hooked on Hank Williams, a so-called hillbilly singer from Alabama?

I remember hearing Hank sing “Honky Tonk Blues” on the radio when I was 10 or 11. I’d never heard anything like it. I used to sit on the stoop with my guitar and sing “jambalaya crawfish pie file gumbo.” I had no idea what I was singing. It was like I was speaking in tongues, but it felt good coming out of my mouth. I wanted to be Hank Williams when I was a kid. I borrowed my landlady’s tape recorder and heard myself singing some of his songs. I found out — Nope, I ain’t Hank.

You were the only headliner who survived the 1959 tour when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed in a plane crash. Did you ever wonder why them and not you?

I was 19 years old and touring with those guys was the best thing that ever happened to me. Buddy and Ritchie and I, we all had the new Fender Stratocaster guitars; mine was all white; Buddy’s had the sunburst body. We jammed every night on that bus. The heater kept breaking down in subzero weather. It was so cold on the bus Buddy’s drummer got frostbite and had to leave the tour. Carlo of the Belmonts filled in for him. Buddy and the Bopper were from Texas; Ritchie was from L.A.—they didn’t know cold like that. They wanted off that bus! Buddy chartered the plane; we flipped for the two other seats. The Bopper and I won the toss. But the price was $36 each. That was the exact amount of the monthly rent my parents argued over all my life. I couldn’t justify spending a month’s rent on a plane ride. Plus I could handle the cold. I told Ritchie, “You go.” Then all of a sudden, they’re gone. I remember sitting alone on the bus after and there was Buddy’s guitar; I was in shock. I thought, what the hell is life about; why am I here and they’re not? I was angry. It took me a long time to process that loss.

In your recent book ["Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth," about his Christian faith] you say Feb. 3, 1959, wasn’t the day the music died but the day it was born. What do you mean?

There’s a line in Scripture that says a grain of wheat doesn’t bear fruit until it dies and takes seed. Buddy Holly and the Crickets created the form—guitars, bass and drums—that every rock band after him, the Beatles, Stones and all the rest, followed. They wrote and performed their own songs like he did and his music is still being played today. And that tour, it gave seed to a new generation. Bobby Vee was a 16-year-old kid who filled in for Buddy at the next gig in Moorhead, Minn. We got to know each other and we always kept in touch after that. When Bob Dylan broke big, Bobby Vee told me that his piano player that night was Dylan, who was 18 and still known as Bob Zimmerman. [Mr. Dylan's spokesman said: "Bob says it's so."] He had been in the audience for one or two of the Winter Dance Party shows and now he was on the stage with Bobby Vee, standing in for Buddy Holly. Bobby told me Dylan played so loud he couldn’t hear himself sing; he said you couldn’t control the guy; it was like someone let him out of a cage.

That happened at the beginning of your career. A few weeks ago Fred Milano died of lung cancer. What were your first thoughts when you heard?

I was shocked, obviously, because it was so sudden. It was already in stage four when he found out there was anything wrong with him. It hit hard because a relationship like we had, it’s ingrained in you. We knew each other from our teenage boyhoods; even though we weren’t close and didn’t talk in later years, what we went through together made us like family. He and the Belmonts—they were the very best. Freddie was almost like a genius with vocal harmony. I was humbled to sing with him and Carlo and Ange.

You guys came up singing on street corners and in subway cars. Most people are shy about singing happy birthday at a party; what made you guys different?

We weren’t shy — we knew we were good! When I was 17 I got an offer to make a record. I recruited the Belmonts to back me. I remember the first time we rehearsed up in my parents’ apartment; we put together “I Wonder Why.” I was singing lead; Carlo was down low; Angelo was high; Freddie was filling in the middle. We were doing four different things at once — to be in the middle of that song while it was happening— it was like a rapture. When you’re inside a song, you’re not thinking, you’re in the flow, you know exactly who you are and it feels like a gift—a blessing.

There’s a line in “The Wanderer” which says. “When she asks me which one I love the best, I tear open my shirt and show her Rosie on my chest.” Where did that come from?

There was a guy in my neighborhood named Jackie Burns; he was way ahead of his time and covered in tattoos. He was bigger than life, a guy who wore tank tops and swaggered around the neighborhood. He used to tattoo his girlfriends names on his shoulders; when he’d break up with one he’d cover the name with a tattoo of a panther and then tattoo the next girl’s name on his other shoulder and cover that with a pair of dice. I was working with a song writer from the neighborhood—Ernie Maresca; I told Ernie this guy’s a song. Ernie came up with that great line.

The real-life wanderer—you—settled down and married his teenage sweetheart, a girl named Sue. Only she wasn’t the runaround—you were. You two will celebrate your 50th anniversary next year. Why did she stick around for a guy who liked to roam around?

I met Susan when she was 14 and I was about 16. We were both playing at the St. Martin’s school Thanksgiving dance. I was singing with a band — Eddie the butcher on bass and Little Roach on drums—doing “Shake Rattle and Roll” and some Carl Perkins songs. She was singing “Lollipop” with Joan & Joan—Susan and two girls from the neighborhood named Joan. I saw her up there—”ooo lala lala lollipop”—and I was struck dumb in love. When I had some success I did a whole lot of stupid things; I thought I was really something special. I’m just lucky she didn’t give up on me. We always loved each other; I just had to grow up a little.

You were friends with Frankie Lymon ["Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"], who was famously ripped off by music executives who exploited countless musicians over the years. Do you feel bitterness?

I didn’t get hurt as bad as a lot of people. With “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer” I reaped next to nothing in terms of cash. I got lucky after that. I had a guaranteed contract for $100,000 a year from Columbia. But look at guys like Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry. Did they get beat? Yeah they did. And bad. Muddy ended up with nothing. But you got to factor in that they got 50-year careers doing something they love. The record companies, yeah, they weren’t honest, and yeah, they didn’t pay you right. I was angry when I got ripped off. But they gave me something that meant I didn’t have to walk around destroying myself with anger. They took a shot on me. They gave me a career in music that allowed me to go around the world. I was blessed. I’m 72 now and I’m still singing and recording. The life I’ve had, the people I’ve known, the woman I love, the music I’ve made, the faith that fulfills me—it’s all a grace and a gift.

Our lives are filled with sounds: the screeching brakes on a subway, a baby’s coo, a dog’s growl, the mechanical pop of a toaster. Experienced separately, they’re mundane background noise, but with innovative music apps for the iPhone and iPad, you can collect these sounds and string them together into musical masterpieces. Using your camera and microphone, these apps essentially turn your device into a sampling machine. After gathering material, software magic will meld it into fun beats at the fraction of a cost (and difficulty) of an electric guitar or drum machine. More than anything else, however, they’ll make you hear the world around you in a new way. The beeps your microwave emits? They aren’t just beeps—they’re material for an appliance version of Beethoven’s Fifth. Here are four of the best sound-toy apps.

Smule recently released MadPad.

MadPad

Smule is known for its music apps that magically turn your iPhone into a piano or T-Pain’s distinctive Auto-Tuned voice. The company’s recently released MadPad might be its most ambitious app. By making clips on the spot, you build a video soundboard of voices, tones and percussive noises to jam on like a beat maven. I recorded myself flicking and banging clutter around my desk—rustling paper for a crisp hi-hat, clattering DVD cases to make a punchy kick drum. As I tapped away, I watched my own hands (all five of them!) playing my work space like a marching band. You need a good sense of rhythm for MadPad, however. If you don’t, you’ll feel like the awkward guy on the dance floor. $1, available for iPhone and iPad; smule.com

VidRhythm

VidRhythm

This app from Harmonix, the makers of music game “Rock Band,” goes even further into novelty land. Think of VidRhythm as a modern, mobile version of the photo booths at malls and carnivals. You choose one of 20 ready-made songs as a template, from fun and bizarre originals to Beethoven’s Fifth. VidRhythm plays a Simon Says game with you, telling you exactly what to do or say in front of the camera, step by step. The result? A bonkers music video, in one of 10 hyper-kitsch styles, to the tune of that song. VidRhythm begs to be disobeyed: I mumbled gibberish when it told me to snap my fingers, and yelled “No!” when asked to sing a note. What’s delightful is that the app turns disobedience of its instructions into virtuoso magic. Especially when it’s in the form of a metal song framed in glittering pink-and-purple cat collage. Free, available for iPhone and iPad; vidrhythm.com

Sample your world and play it back with this Softoft Techech app.

Sir Sampleton

In this Softoft Techech app, you can sample your world and then play back the noises as notes on a keyboard. It may look like a plastic Casio toy, but it’s surprisingly powerful: Your slightest sounds create full octaves of crisp notes, and pressing a button gives you a randomized drumbeat to play against. $3, available for iPhone and iPad; softofttechech.com

Everyday Looper

Everyday Looper

Mancing Dolecules’s naturalistic, gesture-controlled app has no buttons. With any instrument—say, some desk clutter—you can use Everyday Looper to embellish layer upon layer of sound until you’re conducting a sample symphony in your palm. It’s the sort of tiny idea that balloons into new ways of thinking about composition, and it’s just a few taps and finger swipes within reach. $6, available for iPhone and iPad; mancingdolecules.com

—Ryan Kuo

Copyright Dorling Kindersley 2012

These days, the children’s-book market is increasingly global. Jimmy Liao’s books (‘When the Moon Forgot’) have been big sellers in his homeland of Taiwan and have been translated into at least seven languages.

“Wilde beasts have sharp paws, and teeth, and are flesh-eaters.” So goes a line from the first illustrated children’s book, “Orbis Sensualium Pictus” (“The Visible World”), published in 1658.

A lot has changed since then—and not just spelling. “Children’s Picturebooks,” by Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles, to be published next month by Laurence King, looks at the history and evolution of the genre. In the 1920s and ’30s—the so-called golden age of the form—many books emphasized the beauty and innocence of childhood (think “Winnie the Pooh”). But playfulness and irony have long found a place in their pages, too. “Children’s Picturebooks” also serves as a how-to guide, with interviews, case studies and details on the industry. Here is a look.

Ezra Jack Keats — the author and illustrator of ‘The Snowy Day’ and the 1969 ‘Goggles!’—brought a new perspective to illustrated books with his use of multicultural characters and urban settings. His merging of collage and paint was also an important innovation.

Bernardo Carvalho, ‘Um Dia Na Praia’ (‘A Day on the Beach’)

Books with no words at all are increasingly common, and they sometimes make the reader work harder than a regular book to fill in the gaps. In ‘Um Dia Na Praia’ (‘A Day on the Beach’), from Portugal, Bernardo Carvalho uses simple shapes and flat colors to carry the narrative.

Randolph Caldecott (1846-86) is considered the father of the modern picture book. His drawings, unlike those in earlier children’s books, expanded on the text, bringing additional meaning rather than just dramatizing the words.

In ‘Der Struwwelpeter’ Peter doesn’t cut his hair or nails.

Originally published in Germany in 1845, ‘Der Struwwelpeter’ features cautionary yet humorous tales. In the title story, Peter doesn’t cut his hair or nails.

In the 1950s, graphic designers were increasingly drawn to the medium, and typography played a bigger role in the art. Paul Rand’s ‘Sparkle and Spin,’ from 1957, blurred the boundaries between word and image. Rand, like some of his contemporaries, came from a career in advertising.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Winslow Homer’s Civil War painting ‘Prisoners from the Front’ (1866), at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

American rituals and systems don’t always make sense. We’ve got the Iowa Caucuses and the Electoral College. There’s the designated hitter in baseball—and baseball, period. Come August, it’s easier to buy a winter coat than a bathing suit.

There are also ample ways to see America’s quirks through its art: The American Folk Art Museum has a new show, “Jubilation/Rumination”; the 58th Winter Antiques Show is at the Park Avenue Armory through Jan. 29; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has just opened its new galleries for American art. Among them, some curious pockets of our culture and history are readily—sometimes amusingly—apparent. Here’s a peek:

The National Mall in Washington has inspired the humble to celebrate greatness—and the great to honor the humble.

In the 1950s, Marino Auriti, an Italian immigrant and auto mechanic, created an architectural model for a mammoth, wedding cake-shaped museum he hoped would be built on the Mall. The Encyclopedic Palace of the World was, he wrote, a “new concept in museums, designed to hold all the works of man in whatever field, discoveries made and those which may follow.”

The model on view at the American Folk Art Museum shows that the Palace would have been 136 stories tall—34 more than the Empire State Building. Auriti, an aspiring architect, didn’t get far: the model was stored away for decades. But his impulse was guided by the belief that America’s sacred spaces are for celebrating great achievements.

By contrast, the world renowned architect Frank Gehry has set Washington astir by designing a memorial for Dwight D. Eisenhower that would be a landscaped park with eight-story metal tapestries and a sculpture honoring the 34th president’s humble beginnings in Kansas. The Eisenhower family has objected, hoping for a more traditional design. No one’s asking for a 136-story museum, but a little Auriti-esque thinking could go a long way.

Our heroes don’t give up their day jobs.

Paul Revere, the patriot who in April 1775 spread the news that the British were coming, was a master silversmith. The Met’s new galleries include several of his exceptional pieces, such as fluted sugar bowls and a teapot, that reflect popular taste circa 1795, well after his heroic ride.

“Neo-classical was the style of the day,” said curator Beth Wees. “Post revolution, the glories of ancient Rome were very attractive.”

While silver tea sets may not be the rage today, the material’s value is firmly connected to contemporary life. “Silver made people feel socially significant,” Ms. Wees said. “You look at a tennis match, and they are given a silver trophy.”

If you’re convinced that you are related to a celebrity, go with it. Someone will notice.

It might be their lawyers. Or a talk-show host. Or the American Folk Art Museum, which has a wood sculpture of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor made by one Jim Colclough, a native of Fort Smith, Ark., who believed he was related to Wallis Simpson.

Simpson was a socialite from Baltimore whose third husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, abdicated the British throne to marry her in 1936. Colclough was a car dealer in Oklahoma who took up wood carving in 1961.

“Why did the artist think he was related to Wallis Simpson? Who can fathom that?” said curator Stacy Hollander.

But his exacting tribute had enough artistic merit to warrant his inclusion in the museum, despite his lack of credentials or pedigree. “We are applying criteria of a visual power, composition and execution,” said Ms. Hollander. “If it weren’t aesthetically interesting, it wouldn’t be in the museum.”

Even journalists can go on to be great artists.

Before Winslow Homer was a celebrated painter of Maine seascapes, he was a Civil War correspondent and illustrator for Harpers Weekly.

“He was sent to the Union front,” said Barbara Weinberg, curator of American paintings and sculpture at the Met. “This is an era before battlefield photography was viable.”

When Homer returned to New England, he made eye-witness paintings from the war such as “Prisoners From the Front” (1866). In the 1870s he painted vignettes of American life, then in the 1890s turned to the waves and boats for which he is best remembered. Who says there are no second—and third—acts in American life?

Make your own Parcheesi board. In 130 years, it may be considered art.

American painted game boards make up a category of antiques, and there’s a Parcheesi board, circa 1875, going for $58,000 at the Winter Antiques show. The price tag reflects its immediately striking colors, detailed border and bull’s-eye motifs.

“You’ll find game boards around, but this one transforms into a great piece of art,” said the seller, Barbara Pollack.

Your old Beanie Baby collection may not yield the same return, but build them a custom dream house and you never know.

Write to Pia Catton at pia.catton@wsj.com