Sheryl Crow‘s message that you get back what you give is aimed at anyone who leads with hate, but there’s no mistaking who her “In the End” music video is targeting. The country-rocker dropped the new song on Friday afternoon (Aug. 28), with little pre-promotion.
Crow, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump, opens with a two-stanza first verse that can only describe the president: “His words are a drug / While his loyal band of thugs / Cover up all his many transgressions / The fly lands on his ear / And whispers ‘what’s there to fear’ / As long as you’re still the obsession,” she sings during the pre-chorus.
The rest of the song isn’t acutely political, but it’s certainly a social statement. “In the end did you feed them / How’d you treat them / Is it so hard to love / In the end / Like you mean it / Like you’ve seen it / You get back what you give / In the end,” Crow sings at the chorus. Verse 2 addresses those who defend bad actions with faith in God, and a third verse touches on karma.
An animated music video includes all the third rails many musicians are nervous to sing about, even in 2020. President Trump is depicted with a pig’s nose and devil horns throughout the clip. Elsewhere, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is shown looking clueless before the video shifts to include footage from Black Lives Matter protests, then graphs that depict the impact of the coronavirus. It’s all contextualized by the opening scenes of a seemingly inept president, thus placing blame on him and his White House team.
Jeff Trott co-wrote “In the End” with Crow. The song and video arrive just one month after she released a 2020 version of her 2012 song “Woman in the White House.”
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