The Wind Beneath My Wings, The Gas Up Someone's Ass

When you think of a great songwriter named Henley you...

don't think of Larry Henley. THIS GUY:

He scrawled a rotten poem called "Wind Beneath My Wings" (aka "HERO") to which one of his good ol' pals added music.

If you wished the man damnation for that fucking pretentious piece of white bread drivel, you pretty much got your wish, since until his death the other day, Henley had Alzheimer's. His particular form of it, was the form that Robin Williams dreaded so much he preferred suicide: Lewy body dementia.

You get the image of this guy in a hospital bed, with a fucking boom box playing "You're my hero...you're my hero...you're the WIND beneath my wings..." constantly as he blinked in horror.

Put it this way, even the obit writer for the Washington Post got in a dig, calling the song "all but inescapable at weddings, sports shows, piano bars and presidential galas."

So if the Washington Post can't refrain from hating this guy, don't expect mercy HERE.

Henley began his career with a fucking annoying "hit" song. He was a country guy (born in Texas) and with the Newbeats, he sang a piece of irritating garbage called "Bread and Butter." He was responsible for the falsetto on it. The lyric: "I like bread and butter, I like toast and jam, that's what my baby feeds me, I'm her loving man."

No surprise for a song that annoying, it was used for a Sunbeam Bread commecial. Sunbeam is a particularly cheap, lousy white bread that redneck morons stuff down their gullets till they get as fat as hawgs.

Brits have a thing for shit-kickers. The Irish go nuts for C&W, and the Newbeats actually went on tour with Roy Orbison and The Rolling Stones. Legend has it that insane Brian Jones cut himself, had Henley cut himself, and they bonded as "blood brothers." Sure bat-shit idiots think alike.

In the 70's, Henley was mostly a songwriter, hacking or co-hacking tunes for Tammy Wynette ("Till I Get it Right") Tanya Tucker ("Lizzie and the Rainman") and "He's a Heartache" (Janie Fricke). I do have a soft spot in my head for country crapola, but I frankly have not heard of any of those songs, and they were allegedly hits.

As for that fucking "Wind Beneath My Wings," would it surprise you to know that it was one of those crappy songs that just lay around, like Honey Boo Boo dung, with nobody wanting to touch it?

Gooey-voiced old Roger Whitaker finally sang it. That guy would sing anything. Who the fuck buys Roger Whitaker albums, I have no idea, but he's sort of a deep voiced Burl Ives kind of goon. From Canada maybe? Middle of the road like a dead skunk. When his agent mentioned that they got a bite on "Wind Beneath My Wings," even Henley didn't know who Whitaker was. That's plumb ignorant, actually. You might not like Roger Whitaker, but if you're a record fan of any type, at least on the American continent, you've flipped through his fucking albums in the 99 cents bin.

The song kicked around with irritating morons taking shots at it, including middle of the road Negro Lou Rawls, and pip-less Gladys Knight who re-titled it "Hero" because her illiterate fans can't get past four-letter words.

It was actually a lucky seven years after he wrote the damnable atrocity that Bette Flubber-Tits Gay-Following Midler sapped it up for the film soundtrack to "Bitches." Er, "Beaches." It was "Song of the Year" at the No Longer Relevant if they EVER WERE Grammy Awards.

An irony here is that this fucking love song was penned by a guy who was MARRIED AND DIVORCED FOUR TIMES. And, in the end, not knowing his ass from his elbow, there wasn't anyone by his side mewling, "You are my hero...you are the wind beneath my wings." The news of his death was reported by his"attorney and business manager," not any ex-wife or any of his four children. Well, ok, maybe one of the kids thought he was a "hero" and was too durn busted up to mention "pappy finally died of that wastin' disease that had him drooling for months and months and months."

Christ. Is there any worse line in the history of songwriting than "you are the wind beneath my wings?" What the fuck are you, a parrot? A bird-brained chicken? A ratty-faced hornet? WHAT WINGS DO YOU HAVE? And what's so great about having a woman who blows...only to make you airborne? THAT'S NOT MY IDEA OF A BLOW JOB.

Look, I'm not glad he's dead, just because he wrote one of the worst songs this side of Bobby Goldsboro or Barry Manilow. But it IS nice to know he spent some fucking time in purgatory before he died, because this piece of crap song is going to be haunting us all for as long as WE live.

Henley, you were the gas up someone's asshole.

You were the turd in someone's punch bowl.

You were the Kotex on some bloody cunt's bloody cunt.

You were the wind beneath some fat farty guy sitting front of me at the movies.

Can you imagine the tripe-like sympathy and condolence card his family must be getting?? SERVES 'EM RIGHT.