The Anchor

They call me Uncle Walter, but I don't think that's quite right
I'm more like some old worn-out slipper you wear after work at night
I won't deny they called me America's most trusted man
But when you're the voice of a hardworking team
You do the best job you can

It was hard to be the anchor
To ride the shifting tide
To keep the big ship from sinking
The Lord knows each night I tried

I covered every last bit of the news that the 25 minutes could handle
From Apollo 11 to the Watergate, every triumph, every scandal
It lifted our hearts to see a man on the moon
And to hear the Beatles sing
But it hurt to see the killings of JFK and Martin Luther King

It was hard to be the anchor
To ride the shifting tide
To keep the big ship from sinking
The Lord knows each night I tried

Three networks played the national news at the same time every night
Frank Reynolds, and David Brinkley, and I had to balance the left and right
Back in the day we had a fairness rule, came down from the FCC
You had to cover both sides of the story so everyone could see

Now my time has come and gone, I watch from the heavens high
There's only a few that will tell it true, most won't even try
There's an audience for every kind of news
Shaped in every kind of way
Salesmen play on our hopes and fears
And make us poor people pay

It was hard to be the anchor
To ride the shifting tide
To keep the big ship from sinking
The Lord knows each night I tried
It was hard to be the anchor
To ride the shifting tide
To keep the big ship from sinking
The Lord knows each night I tried

And that's the way it is (ooh)
Thursday September 8th, 2022