Sunday, August 5, 2012

Dirty Laundry – Don Henley by Drake

Dirty Laundry – Don Henley

by Drake

The song is about the callousness (and callowness) of TV news reporting as well as the tabloidization of all news. Henley sings from the standpoint of a news anchorman who "could have been an actor, but I wound up here", and thus is not a real journalist. The song's theme is that TV news coverage focuses too much on negative and sensationalist news; in particular, deaths, disasters, and scandals, with little regard to the consequences or for what is important ("We all know that crap is king"). The song was inspired by the intrusive press coverage surrounding the deaths of John Belushi and Natalie Wood, and Henley's own arrest in 1981. Lines in the second verse, "Is the head dead yet?", were likely inspired by the shooting of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and specifically, the erroneous reports by all major news outlets that James Brady, Reagan's Press Secretary, had died from his gunshot wound to the head.

Drake | August 4, 2012 at 10:46 pm | Categories: Inspiration for America | URL: http://wp.me/p2tRr3-j0

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