We live in a rural area. Where cottages became houses and fields became subdivisions. One night some kids were hanging out on the picnic table at the Pizza place as an old 4-door "boat" of a car drove by them rather slowly and backfired. My wife was passing the kids who dove for cover saying "Geeze, I though it was gonna' be a 'drive-by'!” (as in drive by shooting). It's a strange age now when "country" kids immediately assume that a car backfiring = drive by shooting.
I was thinking about school shootings and youth crime and how someone so young could so something so wrong. I was a bad kid. Getting in trouble, being stupid in the neighbourhood, while I was growing up. But, never did even the concept of using guns or killing others enter our minds. Violence, gun fights, killing, etc. was a very thick, obvious line that we never dreamt of approaching, let alone crossing. But we live in different times now, eh?
Unlike
when I was growing up, if I now catch a kid being stupid
and give them a slap up side the head, I’d be the one
going to jail while both the kid and the "kid-crime" I
interrupt, would likely be forgiven by our courts.
I think the knowledge of "relative immunity" for kid helps
push bad kids to act worse than if they usually suffered
serious repercussions for their actions. So, I'm assuming
that some time soon we'll start killing kids in electric
chairs (bridge @ end).
If there’s a solution, it likely lies in training
parents how to be parents. A friend of mine works in group
homes for "troubled" kids and noticed that those making
headlines now are second and third generation goofs,
continuing the family tradition of being nasty.
The POV of this song was me as a journalist, imagining
interviewing the first 16 year-old kid slated to be
electrocuted. What they would say? I love the "strap me in
the chair" ending.
When I played it for my songwriting group, the reaction was
mixed. So I went back into the song, changed the chorus
vocal line, edited the “word-iest lines”, then
changed the bridge and the ending, trying to make the story
as clear as possible.
This song's viewpoint is so strong, it would take a brave
singer to bring it to life.
Contact
me with
your ideas on who should record this song.