The Anchor ©2022 Tim O’Brien / No Bad Ham Music / Admin by Bluewater Music / ASCAP

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
When you’re the voice of a hard-working team you do the best job you can

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

I covered every last bit of news that twenty-five minutes could handle
From Apollo Eleven 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
The keep the big ship from sinking
Lord knows each night I tried

Three networks played the national news at the same time every night
Frank Reynolds, 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 don’t even try
There’s an audience for every kind of news, shaped 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
The keep the big ship from sinking
Lord knows each night I tried (repeat chorus)

And that’s the way it is, Thursday September 8th, 2022