The Verve Pipe? I’m a little bit of a fan.
Did you happen to know, though, that their popular 1997 song “The Freshman” (featured in the video above) is about the songwriter’s regrets surrounding his ex-girlfriend’s abortion?
This song is on my iPod, and I had no idea. But it does appear to be true. You can read a line-by-line explanation of the song by band member Brian Vander Ark at Song Facts.
When I was young I knew everything
She a punk who rarely ever took advice
Now I’m guilt stricken, sobbing with my head on the floor
Stop a baby’s breath and a shoe full of rice
I found out the pro-life meaning behind this popular song’s lyrics and many others in a blog post at Live Action.
As a fan of many kinds of popular music, I am not surprised to find that abortion is a theme in many of these popular songs. Whether you care for it or not, popular music is an art form that reflects the culture. Abortion, and its devastating effects on women, men, families, and personal relationships is an powerful part of that culture that we rarely see addressed with the kind of candor you will find in these songs’ lyrics.
I am grateful to Live Action for putting together such an interesting and useful collection of the creative ways that popular music has addressed the issue of abortion and its destructive consequences with raw honesty.
(Live Action is a “youth led movement dedicated to building a culture of life and ending abortion” headed up by Lila Rose, the UCLA student who made YouTube history with eye-opening “sting operations” at Planned Parenthood clinics.)
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Check out “Ape Shall Never Kill Ape” by The Vandals
Ben Folds’ “Brick” always struck me, too.
That site mentions Our Lady Peace’s “Stealing Babies” which is really about railing at God over a young girl, Eve, who is terminally ill and dying. That’s per an interview they did a while back.
I’m not surprised “First One To The Egg” by Bootsy Collins isn’t on that list… yet.
From “In America” by Creed: “Only in America we kill the unborn to make ends meet.” Straight to the point.
“Silent Scream” by Slayer and the opening lyrics to “These Three Things” by Type O’ Negative. Not exactly the first “pro-life” bands that come to mind, but ...
“The Beat of Black Wings” Joni Mitchell is an incredible song on this issue.
You’re having my baby, by Paul Anka some years ago is truly a pro-life song, and it actually has melody and you can understand he words!
This other song may be for the next generation, but I’d go for Paul’s any day. And he lives this out as he has a large family.
“For the life of me, I can not believe we’d ever die for these sins, we were merely freshman.”
I think sums up the song though, if you’d listen on past the initial bit. (As in, he doesn’t believe he should die because another believes it is a sin, as they were so young they didn’t understand the full import of any decision, just navigating the mistakes of life and learning from them…)
There is a country music song from several years ago about the dissolution of a relationship post abortively - a girl in a red Cabriolet.
Here’s a new link to the video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox3vgGE_Myk&feature=related
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