Dirty Laundry

One song I won't play this week on my show about laundry is the Don Henley hit "Dirty Laundry."  It's not just that it was a number one hit single for Don Henley, & I usually stay away from the hits.  I actually found a serviceable cover, by a band called Harlan, but I might not play it either.

I'm not even refusing to play it because I loathe the Eagles, a group of which (as you know) Henley was a member.  I tell people all the time part of the reason I dislike the Eagles is just that I've been overexposed to them, almost without my consent, for my entire life.  I joke that on my deathbed I'll not be able to remember the names of my best friends, the woman I've loved, or my dearest pets, but I'll be able to recite the lyrics to "Hotel California."

The truth is, in the days before I discovered the gigantic & far more satisfying world of music hidden behind what's now called classic rock radio, I quite liked Don Henley, & specifically the album Building The Perfect Beast.  ("Dirty Laundry" is off the previous record, I Can't Stand Still.)  If you were a teen in 1984, & you listened to FM radio or you watched MTV, the song "Boys Of Summer" was seared into your brain.  Just writing the name makes the song start in my head - & if you're my age, it happened to you, too.

Why, then, if I like the song, don't I play it?  I mean, besides the fact that at any given point in time, somewhere on the planet, there is at least one media outlet playing Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry"?  & by playing it, even on a station like WRFL, you can watch precious dimes & nickels flying out of needy people's pockets into Don Henley's obscenely large pile of cash?

Besides that - I have two reasons.

One, it's not really about laundry, but about "dirty laundry" as a metaphor, meaning people's private stuff, which, if "aired," might bring them shame or embarrassment.

But that's not enough.  I don't play big hits, sure, but certainly I do play songs with metaphorical riffs on my themes.  I might not have any songs otherwise!

This is the kicker:

Reason number two: I'm not sure if I like it, after all.

I haven't listened to any Don Henley since I discovered that there was a world of music outside what was being played on commercial radio.  That world of music resonated in me so completely that I pretty much left the commercial rock/pop world behind.  That's been over thirty years ago now.  While I can look back fondly at myself for liking a song like "The Sunset Grill," there's no denying that bands like the Cure, the Smiths, Joy Division, the Chameleons, on & on & on, they speak to me far more than someone writing in the classic rock idiom, like Don Henley, ever could.

I therefore have no real way of judging whether I like it.  There are songs from my childhood that I love not because I really love them, but because when I was eight I jumped around the room listening to them on the radio.  I can't communicate entirely with the me from nearly forty years ago, but I most certainly can appreciate that that's a connection we share.  Whether I like that music or not, I did like it at one time, & that's a part of me.

Listening to the song "Dirty Laundry," by Don Henley, for the first time in decades, it seemed overlong & didactic.  The synths got on my nerves.  I annoyed myself by remembering a lot of the lyrics.  It wasn't even a pleasant nostalgic experience.

Oh who knows what I'm trying to say here.  I pride myself on doing a radio show that plays music I hope most people haven't heard.  But sometimes the best songs for a theme are well-known songs.

Still, I don't think I'll play the Don Henley song - or even the cover.

I hope you appreciate how stupid conflicted I am about the whole thing.