Ed Murrow (Should Be Here With Us Tonight)

Lyrics

There’s a film of dust on Tripoli
But nothings settled yet
No nothings settled yet
Oh we shouldn’t waste our sympathy
They deserve all that they get said this man
Who had himself been pulled out of a wreckage quite recently
Who had booked into a bombsite
But held onto his spite

Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

In the endless round of hostages
Someone’s playing fast and loose
Someone’s playing fast and loose

Those being held must wonder what the message is
It is a hard one to deduce
Of being locked-up gets to pay for some killing out in southern Honduous
There’s a puzzle in the twilight
Of just who they would indite
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

On those new small screens on every script he’d write
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Seems the news today is a way to separate the game shows
Ed Murrow made it more
He helped America live up to Getisburg
With just a microphone while London burned

On those new small screens with every script he’d write
The relentless theme that might is never right
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
Ed Murrow should be here tonight

On the new small screens with every script he’d write
Ed Murrow should be here tonight
There’s a puzzle in the twilight of who they would indite

Ed Murrow
Ed Murrow

Song Description

Edward R. Murrow was a journalist and broadcaster of high integrity and courage. To him the era of McCarthyism was a nightmare coming true, as he had witnessed fascist movements in Europe. He knew how the fascists made their excesses palatable: anti-communism was the respectable cloak they wore. When his nation was drowning in cowardice and political manipulation, it was Murrow who hurled the spear at the terror. The spear was his “See It Now” television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy. In doing so he was laying his future on the line. His broadcast used only footage of McCarthy just to show him for what he was, thereby letting McCarthy damn himself by his own mouth. Nine month’s later McCarthy was in disgrace for bringing America into dishonour and disrepute.

Ed Murrow’s broadcast on “Hunger in America” caused one critic to comment, “This is the most gruesome programme that I have seen because it is happening in the midst of plenty.”

“We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment unpopular.” Ed Murrow

Versions

• AStudio Version (3:25)
• BDemo (3:05)

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