Music Of the Week: Steve Taylor
June 2, 2009
I’ve posted this video before. But I think it is a good reminder of the fact that one can be against abortion for the wrong reasons, and the culture of death can be found closer to home than we would like to believe. We need to keep our words pure, our hearts pure, and our prayers constant. Let’s work to make sure the tragedy we have seen this week might not be repeated in the future, and that those working for a culture of life can and will embrace the whole Gospel of Life.
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I have the road in my blood
I drive a custom van
I play the tunes
I’m the neighborhood ice cream man
So don’t you mess this boy around
The other day when the clinic had it’s local debut
Some chicks were trying to picket
The doctor threatened to sue
I don’t care if it’s a baby or a tissue blob
but if we run out of youngsters
I’ll be out of a job
And so I
I did my duty
cleaning up the neighborhood
I blew up the clinic real good
Try and catch me coppers
Your stinkin’ badges better think again
Before you mess this boy around
I’ve hung in Saigon just to see the special effects
I’ve hung from gravity boots for my napoleon complex
It’s time to close
Ohhh…. There she blows.
History In the making
You picked a fight.
I pick dynamite
I blew up the clinic real good.
Preacher on a corner
Calling it a crime
The ends don’t justify the means anytime
I stood up on my van
I yelled “Excuse me, sir
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with this country
a few plastic explosives won’t cure”
—-
Steve Taylor of course was commenting upon the fact, back in the 80s, that there was a violent undertone by many protesting abortion, and he is right. Just because someone is against abortion, does not mean they are for the right reason, nor that they understand what being pro-life is about. If the focus is all on abortion, and not the consistent message of life, the violence will come out again and again. It shows many who are against abortion are still a part of the cycle of violence, the culture of death.
But this is not to say all pro-lifers are like this. Many are consistent and work for the dignity of all. Many know they should, but don’t do it so well. These are the voices we need to raise, and to keep in the forefront. Not the radicals who show no understanding that the person they are criticizing is also human.
From Steve Taylor on his song:
From Clone Club News Flash Winter 1988, Winter 1988:
As a strong believer in the sanctity of human life and an outspoken opponent of abortion, I felt like this was a song that needed to be written. I’ve been dismayed to watch the Pro-Life Movement in the U.S. lose some of its credibility because a few people don’t believe God when he says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” (Deut. 32:35, Rom. 12:19).
From Now The Truth Can Be Told Liner Notes & Song-By-Song Essays, Now The Truth Can Be Told Insert Booklet, August 23rd, 1994:
A very incendiary song indeed. Reasonable people on both sides of the abortion debate could argue that this was not a song that needed to be written, but it was the unreasonable ones who made the most noise: The director of an abortion clinic in San Diego threatened a lawsuit against a video show that aired the “Clinic” clip, and when I called her at the show’s request to explain that it was satire, she was so whining and obnoxious that I ended up giving her an earful of what I thought of her profession, then begged her to sue me. Australian TV’s version of Geraldo Rivera did a story on me prior to a national tour there, claiming I was advocating blowing up abortion clinics–the story got picked up by all the major newspapers and eventually forced cancellation of most of the tour (forever dispelling the show biz dictum “all press is good press”). I even spent an hour on the phone with an elderly bookstore owner in Arizona–he’d pulled the album because he thought it was wrong to blow up abortion clinics, and I congratulated him on his integrity in choosing principle over commerce before gently explaining to him the song’s satirical intent.
So what happened? It all seemed obvious to me–the flashing neon lyric in the middle of the song that says, “the end don’t justify the means anytime.” What better example to use than a clinic bomber (except perhaps the nutcases that are now shooting abortionists?) “Christian” relativism’s finest hour! (Okay, maybe Oliver “proud to be a God-fearing liar” North matched it for sheer shamelessness. “Does this mean it’s OK to tell lies, daddy?” Do I still sound angry? Does a duck have lips? Do we get the heroes we deserve, or what?)
I’ll take flak anytime for the right reasons, but this song was controversial for all the wrong ones.
http://www.sockheaven.net/discography/taylor/ip1990/01.html
In this fever swamp country, it’s hard to tell satire from reality :) I’m sure many identified with it. It’s only the ice cream truck that spoils the true yeehaw experience. Put in a pickup truck and you’ve got yourself an anthem.
Speaking of satire, from the Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/news/christ_kills_two_injures_seven_in?utm_source=infocus
Christ Kills Two, Injures Seven
HUNTSVILLE, AL–Jesus Christ, son of God and noted pro-life activist, killed two and critically wounded seven others when He opened fire in the waiting room of a Huntsville abortion clinic Tuesday.
Security guards at the Women’s Medical Clinic of Huntsville were able to disarm the Messiah before He could reload His weapon, a secondhand Glock 9mm pistol that authorities said He purchased legally at a Jackson, MS, sporting-goods store. “Abortion is a sin,” said Christ as He was led away in handcuffs. “It is an abomination in the eyes of Me.” Witnesses said the attack, which took the lives of Dr. Nelson Woodring, 51, and clinic nurse Danielle Costa, 29, came from “out of nowhere.”
“He walked up to the admissions desk and asked if He could see Dr. Woodring,” receptionist Iris Reid said. “The next thing I knew, He was shouting Biblical verses and opening fire on everything moving.”
“It was horrible,” said injured clinic nurse Jessica Combs, recovering at a local hospital with bullet wounds to the leg and abdomen. “He put his hands over Dr. Woodring’s head and told him He forgave him for his sins, and then He shot him right in the face.” Huntsville police officials are not certain how the Messiah was able to bypass clinic guards and proceed undetected past security cameras and into the clinic waiting room, where He produced the gun from its hiding place in the folds of His robe. Federal investigators are similarly baffled, saying that the heavily armed Christ had moved in “mysterious ways.”
Speaking to reporters from His holding cell, Christ, 33, said He had “no regrets” about what He had done.