Rubber Soul, 2/13

I've heard Don Henley's song, "End of the Innocence" many times before, but I'm appreciating it in a whole new context now. I recently went to see the Eagles in concert and I was impressed with the visuals they used. They played the song, "Dirty Laundry" and showed images of magazine covers with the latest gossip. The overwhelming barrage of petty stories that our society's media offers was made very apparent in this performance. Countless magazine covers of celebrity breakups, weight issues, and drug abuses flashed across the screens on the stage. It made a statement that this useless garbage is constantly forced in our faces and there is no avoiding it. It's an attempt of questioning authority...Why does our society thrive on these messages? Don Henley sings, "We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five. She can tell you bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye. It's interesting when people die-Give us dirty laundry." These lyrics reminded me of a point by Walter Benjamin, "Mankind's...self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order" (34).
The Eagles performed another song with interesting visuals, it's called "Long Road Out of Eden." The visuals were somber scenes one might imagine a soldier overseas would experience. He sings about the men risking their lives while those in command are eating lunch at the petroleum club, "Smoking fine cigars and swapping lies. They say, 'Give me 'nother slice of that barbecued brisket. Give me 'nother piece of that pecan pie.'" Here is another fine example of a total metanarrative that Lyotard talks about. This metanarrative Henley sings about is America, and the story of how our forefathers died for the sake of making our country free. But there is suspicion in the lyrics. Why are the leaders commanding the war safe in America and what are the real reasons we've been fighting over there for so long? We talked in class how realism trains us to accept certain realities and keeps us in our place. It's blind belief, we must take it upon ourselves to criticize and destroy the texts. Henley ends his song with the lyrics, "But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools"