What are we saying to our kids?
Danny and CM have been doing the heavy lifting today, so let me just jump in with a quick hit. I plan on doing a longer piece sometime on today’s song lyrics, but one current song worries me and I wonder if I worry needlessly. Picture a teenage girl who has just broken up with her boyfriend, is unpopular in school or whatever else makes a teenager wonder whether life is worth living. She cries out for help but it seems like no one is listening. She hears this lyric on the radio:
A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I’ll sell them for a dollar
They’re worth so much more after I’m a goner
And maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singin’
Funny when you’re dead how people start listenin’
The name of the song is “If I Die Young” by The Band Perry. The whole song is about a young girl dying and the thrust of the song seems to be that dying young is just fine. Another lyric: “The sharp knife of a short life, well
I’ve had just enough time.” Am I right to worry we are dressing up such a message in the clothes of pop music?