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The Song Analysis Of The Watergate Scandal

Decent Essays

Hand Out Sheet with lyrics, song title, name of artist, and any other information
Play Song
Introduction:
Class, interpret what the historical event is in the song.
(Class Answers)
This song was released in 1974 as part of the album Winter America. Gil Scott-Heron, the writer, is from Chicago, Illinois and Brian Jackson, the one who features on the song, is from Brooklyn New York.

The title of the song, “Watergate Blues,” can help you infer that the song will discuss the Watergate Scandal. Watergate is the notorious scandal caused by the United States 37th president, Richard Milhous Nixon. The Watergate scandal occurred in the morning of June 17, 1972, when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate complex of buildings in Washington, D.C.

The highlighted lyrics on page 1, lines 12-13 which read “Lemme see if I can dial this number…. Click! Whirr ... Click!” have to do with the burglars in the watergate break in. The criminals in the attempted robbery were affiliated with a group known as Committee for Re-election of the President, that president being Mr. Richard Nixon. They had been caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. For those of you who do not know, wiretapping is the monitoring of telephone conversations by a third party who tapped the phone in the first place. The lyric can be seen as a joke portraying what the burglars were trying to do, since they were wiretapping phones. The clicking

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