Today is the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the landmark decision is hanging by a one-vote thread in the Supreme Court. President-select Bush and his conservative Christian backers would like nothing better than to appoint another right-wing "justice" and return us to the dark days of back-alley abortions and thousands of dead and mutilated women. Current discussion is here.

I wrote this song after hearing about a teen-age Irish rape victim who was denied permission to travel to England because the authorities suspected she wanted to terminate her pregnancy.


Song of Sixpence   (Michael Rofkar)

Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie
Sing a song of sixpence, belly full of life
Four and twenty black-robed men have got their fingers in your pie

Jeannie was a good girl, she had a rosy sheen
When she met young Willie she was barely just sixteen
Young lovers they are careless, young hearts they are wild
Before six weeks were over Jeannie knew she was with child

She's gone to tell her mother at the breaking of the day
Her mother's wrung her hands and cried, What will your father say
Her father said, I'll not abide the shame you've brought on me
Leave this house by morning and nevermore be seen

She's gone to tell young Willie by the factory
He says, I'm bound apprentice, can't support a family

She's gone to the confession her fearful soul to soothe
Saying, Father please forgive me for the thing that I must do
The priest he was an old man, he knew young Jeannie well
He says, May God forgive you but I fear you'll burn in hell

Sing a song of sixpence, a shilling or a crown
Jeannie's found a doctor in the bad part of town
Sing a song of sixpence, rulebook full of lies
Can we let old men decide if a young girl lives or dies?

They found her in an alley at the breaking of the day
Her arms wrapped tight around her, her life blood drained away
Sing a song of sixpence, that's all a life is worth
When a girl must make the choice between a living and a birth

(repeat 1st verse)

Published by Kudzu Tunes, (c) 1995