I heard a song today that enraged me.
It was worse than “Christmas Shoes,” and that’s saying something.
You may listen to it hear:
http://www.dayofthechild.org/dc98/dmj.htm
Or, you may read the lyrics here:
http://www.dayofthechild.org/dc98/lyric.htm
The voice of a small young girl sings a letter she writes to Jesus asking about a child she read about who was beaten by her parents.
She, of course, doesn’t understand. Then we have the chorus sung by a bunch of other kids.
I’m listening as I drive home, and about this time my mood is changing from a happy one. I grip the wheel tightly and press down the accelerator.
We get another verse about how this little girl wants Jesus to intervene and stop the beaten girl’s pain and then the chorus again.
As the spedometer eases past sixty, I contemplate suddenly turning the wheel and driving straight into a tree. The song is so horrible, so glurgy and blindly manipulative, so horribly bad, that I can’t turn it off. Perhaps if I drive into this tree…
The final verse comes through on the radio:
The tears are rolling down my eyes. It’s worse than Chicken Soup for the Soul. My car goes on two wheels as I scream recklessly around a corner.
The chorus starts up again, and now it sounds like Mchael Bolton has joined the children, riffing righteously.
A circuit breaker pops in my head, and I black out and somehow drive home. I come to in the driveway.
For the first time in my life, I feel like I want to hurt children. It’s the only way to ever ensure that they will never sing a song like this again.
Dear Lord, why?