The Playlist: The Easy Winners

Republicans cruised to victory in all the statewide races decided this week in Texas, so we start our playlist inspired by the state's political and policy-related news with "The Easy Winners" by Scott Joplin.

The easiest way to enjoy the playlist is to download Spotify, a free program. But even without it, you can still follow along. Here are the other selections for the week:

After Election Day, while the Republicans celebrated their wins, the Democrats were left trying to determine — as U2 put it in our second song selection — "Where Did It All Go Wrong?" Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis' campaign was only the latest in a string of failed attempts to paint an opponent as an "Austin insider," so next we have "It's All Been Done" by the Barenaked Ladies.

We also included Phantogram's "16 Years," since that's how long the Democrats' statewide losing streak has been (so far). And for all the new faces that will be in the Texas Legislature in the upcoming session, we have "Welcome To The Jungle" by Guns N' Roses.

One weird item from Election Day itself was a voting machine in Bexar County that erroneously omitted the name of Republican gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott, which inspired the addition of Blind Melon's "Glitch."

In other news, Gov. Rick Perry headed to court, where his lawyers tried to convince a judge that the prosecutor pursuing abuse-of-power charges against him was improperly sworn in. This prompted us to include "Courthouse" by Chris Isaak. And then we also added David Bowie's "Looking For Water," because the state is almost ready ready to start handing out $2 billion in seed money for water projects.

This week also marked the Tribune's fifth anniversary, so we have Seu Jorge's version of "Five Years." And we also announced that we will be opening a bureau in a city that shares a name with our final song. It's "Washington, D.C." by Gil Scott-Heron.

Enjoy!