Robert Cheeks suggests in his comment on my last Songbook post that if there aren’t any, there’s really no point in me saying that Rock is ambivalent about or even resistant to modernity.
He has a point.
So, here are two possible candidates. The first is the most obvious choice, the barbaric punk song “Bodies” by the Sex Pistols, Given the glee it takes in giving offense and talking about the sheer gore of abortion, its hard to know how seriously to take it. It sure isn’t willing to be polite about abortion, even if we have reason to wish this little piece of our “culture” had itself been “aborted,” so base it is and yet so proud of its 9th-grade cleverness.
A truly beautiful song, whose civilized charms perhaps will cleanse our inner ears of the Pistols’ insinuating crudity, “This Night Has Opened My Eyes” by the Smiths is my second candidate, although it seems to take a studiously neutral stance towards the Choice itself: and I’m not happy, and I’m not sad .
Well, what do y’all make of these songs? Are they anti-abortion?
And surely, there have been others. At the least, songs or lyrics that display serious ambivalence about abortion. Can anyone think of more examples?
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