Scarecrow

Included in my voluminous iTunes purchases today was an iTunes Original Album by Melissa Etheridge. I'm not a huge M.E. fan, but I like some of her stuff & she's gay, so I gotta support the family! Anyway the album has commentary interspersed and before the song "Scarecrow", which I had heard before, but never listened to - she spoke about how she had written the song for Matthew Shepard.

So, of course I immediately 'listened' to the song - needless to say its been a little more than 7 years since he was murdered, but this song brings it all back so vividly....such that I found myself crying in my living room this morning.....so in order to make everybody's day - I thought I'd post the lryics.


Showers of your crimson blood
Seep into a nation calling up a flood
Of narrow minds who legislate
Thinly veiled intolerance
Bigotry and hate

But they tortured and burned you
They beat you and they tied you
They left you cold and breathing
For love they crucified you

I can't forget hard as I try
This silhouette against the sky

Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Angels will hold carry your soul away

This was our brother
This was our son
This shepherd young and mild
This unassuming one
We all gasp this can't happen here
We're all much too civilized
Where can these monsters hide

But they are knocking on our front door
They're rocking in our cradles
They're preaching in our churches
And eating at our tables

I search my soul
My heart and in my mind
To try and find forgiveness
This is someone child
With pain unreconciled
Filled up with father's hate
Mother's neglect
I can forgive But I will not forget

Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Rising above all in the name of love