Talkin Music – Sad Music with Jack

Sad Music

This Column Hurts

11-6-13

     As most of us know, earlier this month there was yet another school shooting, this one at Sparks Middle School located in Nevada.  A middle school student opened fired on campus killing a teacher, wounding two students and then turning the gun on himself.  I thought Nevada, why does Nevada sound so close to home, and I realized that no distance would make it OK, no school shooting could be far enough away to be OK.

I wish I didn’t think about it, but we do, we all do.  My God, the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy in Connecticut on December 14, 2012, 27 victims, Columbine 1999, 13 dead, and I thought out loud with Donna in the room.  When did this school shooting start? I mean has this always been going on and it’s just now coming to our attention, the nation’s attention, or is this something that just started at Columbine?  Donna replied “I’m not sure when it started but I can remember Brenda Ann Spencer in something like 1979 or 1980.”

Wow, I forgot about her, Brenda Ann Spencer was 16 years old in 1979, and opened fired on a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego California on January 29, 1979.  Brenda killed two adults, eight children and one police officer was wounded.

Bob Geldof, a musician, was at Georgia State University giving an interview at the campus radio station when a report of the shooting came over on a telex report.  The young girl, Brenda showed no remorse, for her violent act, and according to the telex report when asked why she did it, her full explanation for her actions was “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

Geldof had a band called The Boomtown Rats, and was giving an interview on the school’s radio station with the schools telex machine beside him, as he was conducting the interview this story came out of the machine and he was reading it firsthand thinking not liking Mondays as a reason for doing somebody in is a bit strange.  Geldof later noted that he was thinking about it on the ride back to his hotel room and I just said, “Silicon chip inside her head had switched to overload.” He said he wrote that down, as I watched the television later and the journalists interviewing her said “tell me why?” it was such a senseless act, and the reporters repeatedly said to her, “tell me why.”

When Geldof wrote the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” he stated that it wasn’t an attempt to exploit tragedy, but just a senseless song for such a senseless act.  Brenda Ann Spencer’s family tried unsuccessfully to prevent the single from being released in the United States.  However radio stations in San Diego refrained from playing the song for many years out of respect for the families.  The song went to Number One in the UK single charts but only reached # 73 on the US Billboard Charts.

 

I Don’t Like Mondays

By The Boomtown Rats

 

The silicon chip inside her head

Gets switched to overload.

And nobody’s gonna go to school today,

She’s going to make them all stay home.

And Daddy doesn’t understand it,

He always said she was as good as gold.

And he can’t see no reason

‘Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?

 

Tel me why?

I don’t like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I Don’t like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don’t like Mondays.

I want to shoot

The whole day down.

 

The telex machine is kept so clean

As it types to a waiting world.

And Mother feels so shocked,

Father’s world is rocked,

And their thoughts turn to

Their own little girl.

Sweet 16 ain’t so peachy keen,

No, it ain’t so neat to admit defeat.

They can see no reasons

‘Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to be shown?

 

Tell me why?

I don’t like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don’t like Mondays.

Tell me why?

I don’t like Mondays

I want to shoot

The whole day down.

 

All the playing stopped in the playground now

She wants to play with her toys awhile.

And school’s out early and soon we’ll be learning

And the lesson today is how to die.

And then the bullhorn crackles,

And the captain crackles,

With the problems and the how’s and why’s.

And he can see no reasons

‘Cause there are no reasons

What reason do you need to die

 

Tell me why?

I don’t like Mondays.

 

     To answer my question, when did this school shooting stuff start, how long has it been going on?  Sadly, school shootings and school violence go back to the early 1700’s when the very first reporting of a school shooting took place in what is now the United States when four Lenape Indians entered a school house in what is now Greencastle Pennsylvania, and killed the Schoolmaster and as many as ten children.  Since that day there have been hundreds of school shootings.

Since 1980 alone, more than 300 people have died in school shootings, if that’s not bad enough, it’s getting worse.  2012 capped off a record year of school shootings in the United States.  In 2012 there were 10 school shootings that left a total of 41 people dead and another 13 wounded.  While you digest that awful piece of information, let me give you even more shocking news, the year 2013 has been even more deadly. In January of 2013, eight school shooting had been reported, kinda makes me sit back and think, where are we as a nation going with this, when and how does it stop, more importantly, what do we do or say to help curve the violence.

We’re not going to address gun control in this column, is gun control really the problem?  We’re not even going to address the parents of these children in this column; I believe most parents really do raise their children to the best of their ability. So for a moment, can we all ponder this, everything, every change in our lives starts with educating our children at home and in school, at a very early age.  There are so many things in our lives that we have no control over, educating our children is one of the few things we can all do.

Certainly we have all cried enough tears over school shootings, certainly we have all gasp, “not again,” Certainly we have all been glued to our televisions or computers just waiting for the facts, how many shot?, how many killed? And of course the all-important “but why, tell me why.”  The sad part of it is, I’ve yet to hear any excuse going back to the Lenape Indians, that makes any sense, think about it, a young student just shot up a school, do you think there will ever be an excuse where any of us say, “Oh now I understand, of course he was within his or her rights to kill those people.”

We don’t need our government to help us on this one, we’re on our own, can we just explain to our kids at an early age, that there will never come a day, ever, ever, when it’s OK to carry a gun into school.

 

As usual, I have music that relates to every situation, I’m not sure exactly what Sonny and Cher were referring to when they sang “Laugh At Me,” perhaps they knew what it was to be bullied at a young age, maybe because of the way they dressed as teenagers they were made to feel like outcast, perhaps someone pissed them off with the things that were said to one or the other, but I saw Sonny sing this song during an oldies concert, (a television event) and I think his message was “why pick on me,” here’s a few lines from the song:

Laugh At Me

 

Why can I be like any guy

Why do they try and make me run

Son of a gun

Now what do they care

About the clothes I wear

Why get their kicks from making fun

Yeah this world’s got a lot of space

And if they don’t like my face

It ain’t me that’s going anywhere, no

 

So I don’t care

Then laugh at me

If that’s fair

I have to beg to be free

Then baby laugh at me

And I’ll cry for you

And I’ll pray for you

And I’ll do all the things

That the man upstairs says to do

 

Interesting, a band called Mott The Hoople (known for “All The Young Dudes”) later covered the song.

 

One of my favorite early folk rock bands Peter, Paul, and Mary performed a song called “Don’t Laugh At Me,” the song was also covered years later by Mark Wills, Brad Paisley and a few others.  The songs “Laugh At Me,” and “Don’t Laugh At Me,” pertains to children and teenagers who are a little different, perhaps labeled as outcast by some.  Maybe they dress a little different, talk a little different and just maybe listen to music that’s a little different.  When a fellow youngster tends to give them a little crap about being different, there’s a very, very thin line between having a little fun and bullying them.  When a group of young folks join in on the making fun, or bullying, that child or young adult needs to find a way to get even.  Getting even depends on their state of mind, and that ladies and gentleman is the million dollar question that needs a five cent answer.

Sometimes a child may give off signs that they are in need of help, and when that’s ignored, sometimes suicide follows, statistics show that suicides among young people happens a whole hell of a lot more than we tend to think they do.  That’s bad news, it can get worse. The worse news is the child that shows or gives no signs of being bullied, they show no sign of rage, and then the unthinkable happens, it involves a temper, rage, and a weapon.  The lyrics have been up-dated over the years, here’s a few of the lyrics combined.

 

Don’t Laugh At Me

Mark Wills

 

I’m a little boy with glasses

The one they call the geek

A little girl who never smiles

I’ve got braces on my teeth

And I know how it feels

To cry myself to sleep.

 

I’m that kid on every playground

Who’s always chosen last

A single teenage mother

Tryin’ to overcome my past

You don’t have to be my friend

Is it too much to ask?

 

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names

Don’t get your pleasure from my pain

In God’s eyes we’re all the same

Someday we’ll all have perfect wings

Don’t laugh at me.

 

I’m the cripple on the corner

You pass me on the street

I wouldn’t be out here beggin’

If I had enough to eat

And don’t think that I don’t notice

That our eyes never meet.

 

I lost my wife and little boy

Someone crossed the yellow line

The day we laid them in the ground

Is the day I lost my mind

Right now I’m down to holdin’

This little cardboard sign

 

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names

Don’t get your pleasure from my pain

In God’s eyes we’re all the same

Someday we’ll all have perfect wings

Don’t laugh at me.

 

I’m fat, I’m thin, I’m short, I’m tall

I’m deaf, I’m blind, hey aren’t we all?

*********************************

Peter, Paul and Mary add

 

I’m black, I’m white

And I am brown

I’m Jewish, I’m Christian

And I’m a Muslim

 

I’m gay, I’m lesbian

I’m American Indian

I’m very young

I’m quite aged

 

I’m quite well fed

I’m very poor

 

Don’t laugh at me

 

God knows, I’m no preacher, can we all talk to our children

 

Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Questions

# 1   During the four day Woodstock Event 32 performers took the stage and sang a total of 280 songs.

# 2   The Who led all performers with 24 songs, the Who took the stage at 5:00 A.M. and played until 6:05,

The Jefferson Airplane followed the Who and took the stage at 8:00 A.M., when Grace Slick was quoted as saying “I had breakfast for 400,000 in mind, It’s a new Dawn.” Followed by the song Volunteers.

 

# 3   Country Joe McDonald sang a song and we asked where the next stop was in the song?

And it’s one, Two Three

What are fightin’ for,

Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn,

Next stop is Vietnam.