What was the REM song “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” about? I read that before the song came out, Dan Rather was mugged in NYC, (Oct. 4 1986), and the attacker shouted the question “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” during the beating. While the “frequency” refers to the wavelength of the transmissions that CBS was beaming into the guys head… No one knew who the hell Kenneth was. I guess he thought he was getting messages from CBS. Anyone know why REM made a song about it? If the song WAS refering to the attack?
The song was based loosely on the attack, REM did say that when it came out. As a joke Dan Rather even sang part of the song on Letterman one night. I think maybe they just thought it was a funny topic to base a song on.
The song was definitely a reference to the attack. For a really long time after Dan Rather got beat up, no one had any idea why the guy who did it kept saying, “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” Everyone but Dan thought it was kind of surrealistically funny, and REM did the song before the story came out about why the guy did it and what he meant when he said that.
Just to add to this from my faulty memory, for years it seemed people thought Rather may have been makig this bit up, but in the mid-to-late 90s a psychiatrist came forward and admitted that the attacker was one of his patients and gave the explanation for the bizarre question (typical beaming information in/out of the patient’s skull, or something of that nature) his now-decesed client posed to Mr. Rather.
My memory of the events.
Sir Rhosis
This has been answered pretty thoroughly, but if you want more information, including links to various news stories about the incident and aftermath, visit this previous thread on the subject.