someonecompletelyrandom

I too wrote a song abour war. It goes something like this...

Oh war is bad / Yes war is bad
It's so very bad / I'm not very glad that it's bad
People die and stuff / People sit and huff
About why war's so bad / People get so mad

That WAR... IS... BAAAAAAAAAAAD.

VEGANGELICA

Excellent!

We can sing them as a duet, Conan!

I want to do the huffing part in yours, though. I will make very loud huffing sounds. Like this: HUFF!! HUFF HUFF!

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someonecompletelyrandom

You and me, we're goin' places!

VEGANGELICA

Yes, we are indeed, Conan! And we never know where, which is what makes this especially fun.

Since you mentioned that we're going places, I thought I'd finally post about where my songwriting journey began.

Several years ago I wrote a children's vegan nursery song because there are so few vegan songs in existence. I wanted to be able to sing a vegan song to my child to counteract animal-unfriendly songs such as, "Bye, baby Bunting, Daddy’s gone a-hunting, gone to get a rabbit skin to wrap the baby Bunting in," or "Alouette," the popular French Canadian children's song about plucking the feathers off a skylark, which originated with the French Canadian fur trade.

I ended up writing the following poem, "Be Our Friend," and put it to music to encourage children (and adults whose inner child still lives) to think about how animals may feel. I also wrote the song to teach people about the basics of vegan nutrition. This was my first vegan song and the first song I ever wrote, so I am fond of it:

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“Be Our Friend” - by Erica

Baa, baa, white sheep,
have you any wool?
Yes, oh yes, a whole back full,
but my hair, as you can see,
should stay here on my body
for it’s part of me.

Moo, moo, brown cow,
have you any cream?
Yes, oh yes, sweet as a dream,
but my milk is for my calf.
Please don’t take her from me
or cut our lives in half.

Oink, oink, pink pig,
have you any meat?
No! It’s my flesh!
I’m not for you to eat!
For I love living and moving around,
happily searching for roots underground.

You don’t need meat, milk, cream or wool.
There is no need to harm an animal.
Help us live our lives as long as they extend
and be our friend.

Cluck, cluck, speckled hen,
have you any eggs?
Yes, oh yes, safely nestled by my legs,
but they can’t get cracks or nicks,
for they are slowly growing
into cuddle little chicks.

Honk, honk, gray goose,
have you any down.
Yes, oh yes, a silky feather gown,
but my feathers keep me warm and dry.
Please don’t kill and pluck me.
I don’t want to die.

Hop, hop, rabbit,
have you fur to give?
No! I don’t, because I want to live!
My coat is soft, but not for your sake.
My life belongs to me.
It isn’t yours to take.

You don’t need eggs, leather, down or fur.
There is no need to harm a creature.
Help us live our lives as long as they extend
and be our friend.

What can you use
since you shouldn’t use us?
That is a question we really should discuss.
Cotton, linen, flax, and rice,
garbanzo beans and sesame tahini are nice.

Peanut butter, almond butter, too,
and whole grain breads are good for you.
Kale, broccoli, and fruits galore.
Add vitamin B-12.
Who could ever ask for more?

Yet more there is:
a fruit and vegetable feast.
You don’t need to harm a living beast.
Help us live our lives as long as they extend.
Treat us all with kindness
and be our friend.

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teknoaxe

Gotta say, even though your lyrics are heart-felt, I have to relate this to De La Rocha and maybe one of the reasons RATM took so long to write albums...is because after a few songs about raging against society he probably had serious cases of writer's block because his scope of lyrics was so narrow.

Your scope is even more narrow. Your writing skills are good, but I wouldn't limit your focus to just vegetarianism.

VEGANGELICA

Hi teknoaxe,

Thanks again for reading a bit of my thread!

I agree that singing songs just about vegetarianism would be a narrow focus. That is one reason I write *vegan* songs, rather than only *vegetarian* songs.

Veganism, to me, simply means striving to be kind to sentient beings, who include oneself, other humans, and non-human animals. So vegan songs can cover a near limitless range of topics, such as genital cutting, war, hunting, women's rights, and body hair!

Vegetarian songs, in contrast, focus on the topic of eating animals and are a subset of vegan songs.

The difference between veganism and vegetarianism is demonstrated by considering Adolf Hitler. Hitler was vegetarian. He was *not* vegan, although he may actually have had sympathy for livestock animals Adolf Hitler's vegetarianism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Hitler was not vegan, of course, because he authorized and organized the slaughter of millions of people, especially Jewish people.

HITLER - *NOT* VEGAN!!!


P.S. What I find so sad about Hitler is that he certainly was capable of compassion in many areas of his life. Here he is as a child, below.

I often wonder, do people who commit atrocities usually recognize that they are committing atrocities? Hitler, for example, genuinely felt he was doing a good thing for humanity by killing the "sub-human" members. If killing animals is an atrocity, would we expect a society of people to acknowledge or feel this? Or would people think they are doing a good thing for humanity by killing and eating animals?

HITLER - when he was a child

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Zaqarbal

^ Hi, Erica. I've been thinking about this post above, and suddenly a bunch of films related to it have come to mind. I don't know why, but at this moment I feel like Remington Steele (remember Pierce Brosnan mentioning movies all the time? ).

When I saw that picture of the motherfu**er par excelence (together with Stalin) as a boy, I thought of Come and See (if you haven't seen it, download it right now!; it's an absolutely essential masterpiece to any cinema lover). There is a fantastic scene in it. I think this is one of those cases in which images worth more than a thousand words. Sublime:

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VEGANGELICA

Hi, Zaqarbal (aka Remington)!

Thank you for your comments! I wish I could offer you tea, cookies, and apple slices to welcome you to my MB thread-home.

I will definitely try to find the 2004 movie "Downfall" about Hitler's last days in his bunker. The clip is thought-provoking since it shows how the shooter finally imagines facing Adolf Hitler when Adolf was a baby. The shooter's human compassion prevents him from being able to kill that baby, even though he knows what the baby will grow up to do.

The clip from "Downfall" made me think three things:

(1) Killing a child or perhaps any person because of what he might do never makes sense, because we never know someone's future choices definitively.

(2) You would have had to kill millions and millions of people in order to prevent the Holocaust, since Hitler could not implement this plan without huge numbers of supportive people who wanted to implement it and supported the goals.

(3) This humorous clip I saw about Hitler in his bunker!



Zaqarbal, the videos of Hitler's compassion for the dog and the little children are painful to watch because they do show Hitler was a thinking, caring person, just like us, in much of his life. The face of a friendly dog pressed against his moved him. Little children's sweet personalities touched him. He was a "good man" in many ways. I cannot say, seeing those videos, that he was a "bad" man; he was both good and bad, at the same time.

Another example of this ambivalence in judging people: German soldiers sometimes found it hard emotionally to kill women, men, and children at gunpoint, even though they believed it was the right thing to do in order to shape society according to their eugenics beliefs. This is one reason concentration camps were conceived...to protect German soldiers from the trauma of killing other people face to face, and also to make the killing faster, since the plan was to destroy all Jewish people throughout the world. So some of the soldiers were both compassionate and callous at the same time.

Yes, I remember you quoting Schopenhauer in the animal cruelty thread! After I read it, I thought about whether I agree with this quote or not: "Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man."

I agree with you that someone (like Hitler) who is compassionate to animals may not be a good person overall. However, I feel that many overall good people *are* cruel to animals.

Assuming "good" equals caring for another individual's well-being, rather than just one's own, then I'd say we all are good to a degree. No one is all "good"; no one all "bad." It is a matter of degree.

I realized early on that humans are like wolves and I am one among them. I love them, even as I am horrified by them. They kill so gracefully, so easily, and often the worst things they do stem from their great ability to love.

Ever since I was 5, when a woman at a fishery smashed the head of a fish I picked out thinking it was to be a pet, I realized I was surrounded by people who can be both callously cruel and beautifully loving. Actually, I realized this when I was 4 and saw people beheading chickens to feed other people whom they love.

Humans will do horrible things for love. Love of god. Love of country. Love of concepts. Love of family. Love of children. Love of peace. The Holocaust itself stemmed from love...the German folk loved their people and so wanted genetic "purity" to fulfill their vision of what was best for humankind.

I feel it is one of life's great ironies that most of humanity's worst choices, which often involve hurting others, stem from love. I call this tendency to do awful things in the name of love, "Love gone wrong."

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VEGANGELICA

Dear MBers,

I have been waiting twelve long months to post the lyrics of "The Santa Song," which I wrote last December as a backup song for MusicBanter's 2009 "A Festivus for the rest of us" Song Contest. http://www.musicbanter.com/lounge/45...g-contest.html

"The Santa Song" deals with my puzzlement that people believe in one supernatural being rather than another, and claim that one religion is more reasonable than another. What makes Christianity seem more believable than Hinduism, Roman gods and goddesses, Asherah (the female deity dispensed with early on in The Bible Asherah pole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), or...Santa?

In my view, all religions and stories such as Santa are the myths created by humans terrified by death and the unknown, and longing for love and security, although I realize I can't disprove these myths. Even Santa might be real, but he's delivering presents to children on Planet Xglug!

I am especially bothered when parents force their mythical thinking onto children. I am perplexed when people who swallow Christianity believe the Santa story is fictional, lie to children to make them believe there is a Santa, tell them to follow Jesus Christ or face damnation, but then finally admit that Santa was a lie but still try to make their children believe in a religion that to me seems much more implausable than Santa Claus!

I feel that lying to kids by telling them there is a Santa or a god is disrespectful and deceitful toward children. Similarly, telling children that the universe loves them, that they will live after death, etc., when you have no way to truly know this, also misleads children and distorts their ability to separate fact from fiction.

I might be more forgiving of religions if believers within the U.S. government didn't try to force my child to say "one nation, under God" every single morning at school, as if this weren't promoting religion when it is OBVIOUS to any thinking human that such teachings promote a (monotheistic) religious belief in a supernatural being.

Thanks to religious people in school and circles of relatives, my child has become afraid of saying the word "hell" for fear he will go there. He used to get very disturbed when I would mention "hell" while discussing people's religious beliefs, because he feared just saying "hell" would consign me to everlasting torture! I feel life has enough *real* scary stuff to worry about without people concocting disturbing stories about hell and heaven and scaring little children unnecessarily.

That is the background behind "The Santa Song." In this song I describe some of the *real* scary and sad things in life, which I face without making up palliative stories about happy endings:

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"The Santa Song" by Erica

It's hard to remember the view from the top
when everything's going downhill.
It's hard to remember your cup was ever full
when there's nothing left to spill.

It's hard to recall how it felt to be warm
when you're out in the cold.
It's hard to recall how it felt to be young
when you look in the mirror and you're old.

You know there's going to be a last time
and all that you love will end.
You'd like to think the tunnel leads to light
but I can never pretend

everything will get better,
it'll be alright,
the future may look dark
but it's gonna be bright,
life is eternal,
someone's gonna save you,
the universe is filled with love and...
Santa is true.

It's hard to believe life was ever easy
once it's always uphill.
It's hard to believe in mind over matter
when you find you lack the will.

It's hard to recall you ever had choices
when choices are gone.
It's hard to feel the sun will always shine
while watching your last dawn.

The child whose hand you hold
will grow up and go away.
The person in the bed beside you
won't be able to stay.
I know the best policy is honesty,
so I won't claim this is what I see:

everything will get better,
it'll be alright,
the future may look dark
but it's gonna be bright,
life is eternal,
someone's gonna save you,
the universe is filled with love and...
Santa is true.

Everything will get better,
it'll be alright,
the future may look dark
but it's gonna be bright,
life is eternal,
truth is what you feel,
the universe is filled with love and...
Santa is real.

I've seen him,
I feel him,
I read about him in a book!
I left him sugar cookies
and he ate them up -- look!

I feel Him,
I know Him,
I read about him in a Book!
He left me lovely presents
and that's my proof of Him -- look!
That's my proof of Him -- look!
That's my proof of Him. Look!

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VEGANGELICA

Hello again, MB people,

I realize I have gotten a little diverted from my initial strident and obvious vegan songs and have been posting more lyrics about human relationships. Nevertheless, I've decided to post the lyrics for yet another song that isn't obviously vegan, called "Return." I think my next song will be about wool, though!

I started "Return" in January of 2010 and worked on it off and on last year, probably finishing it around the same time as the last lyrics I posted since the formats are similar. The lyrics have an awful lot of "to's" and "haves" in them, but, ah well, nothing's perfect.

"Return" is about the degree to which free will is involved when you love someone. While writing the song, I was thinking of one of my favorite lines in poetry: "I half turn to go, yet turning stay." from Christina Rossetti's poem, "Remember." Remember, by Christina Rossetti

I also was inspired by the saying, "If you love someone, set her free. If she comes back, she's yours. If she doesn't, she never was.... " I feel that is good advice, since it helps me make peace with what people I care about do and it reminds me not to try to bind them down. I also feel this saying is good advice for how people should treat non-human animals. If people really cared for and loved animals, they wouldn't raise or hunt them to kill them. I found out I'm not the only person who has thought this:

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"Return" by Erica

The young tree we planted is growing older,
the leaves turning brilliant
when days turn colder,
just like we planned,
dirt on our hands years ago.

The autumn of a life arrives so fast.
I never thought I'd be alone.
Thought we would last,
just like we planned,
hoping we'd command
the future's flow.

Yet while I had no choice but to love you,
you had no choice but to go
when you had to,
and as I turn back the clock,
I wonder how you're doing now,

because I have no choice but to love you,
who had no choice but to be
whom you had to.
Still I wonder, wonder
what we'd be doing now.

I watch the chilly breeze
sway branches of our tree,
the robins' hollow nest now empty,
though they'll return
when once again they yearn
in spring to come home.

If you had stayed
you would have seen them
and their fragile eggs,
each like a blue gem,
from which each year hatchlings appear,
their broken shells below.

I know I'm lucky,
yes, I'm lucky to be healthy and alive,
but I thought I'd have my feelings all in order,
now that time is running down
and getting shorter,
yet every day, every day
I'm still saying goodbye

when I turn back the clock
and you're turning back to me,
in your eyes I know I see apology.
I could have kept you with a word,
but I say, shhh, go,

because I had no choice but to love you,
who had no choice but to be
whom you had to.
Still I wonder, wonder
what we'd be doing now

if when I had no choice but to love you,
you'd had no choice but to know
you never wanted to
have to turn back the clock
to be with me now,

like I turn back the clock,
I turn back the clock
in my mind
I turn back the clock
to be with you now.

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