The Awesomest Songs You Never Knew Were Pro-Life

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.)