VEGANGELICA

Hello MB,

I have hesitated to post "Hide," which I finished months ago, because I realize both meat-eaters and some vegetarians may find it offensive.

I started the song in 2008 but had troubles figuring out the direction to take the lyrics until my discussions with The Unfan on MB made me think to focus the song on handsome farmboys and farmers I have known or observed over the years.

I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but I also wanted with this song to show livestock producers as I see them. In my experience, livestock producers have no qualms at all about killing animals or raising animals to be slaughtered, and they feel they are solely doers of good.

ERICA'S MUSIC RATING SYSTEM ranking for "Hide" is VSO for "Vegan Song that may Offend you."

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"Hide" by Erica

Nothing gets to you inside.
I can’t break through your toughened hide,
hiding away what’s sensitive –
the child in you who died.

Remember seeing your 4-H calf
whose soft brown eyes looked up to you.
You sold her out, betraying her trust
to sate your money lust.

Hate is sad. Anger drives people mad,
but what seems most appalling
is that you do these dreadful deeds
and don’t feel a thing!

Hang your rabbit’s foot for luck
in your rundown farmer’s truck
stocked with guns and traps you own
to snap your victims’ bones.

Drive the corn rows of your land
by barns of swine whose death you’ve planned
as you’re forcing them to feed
this sordid life you lead.

Hate is sad. Anger drives people mad,
but what seems most appalling
is that you do these dreadful deeds
and don’t feel a thing!

What could make you change,
give you the conscience you lack,
callously trying to arrange
to take what you can’t give back?

What could make you feel,
stirring your dead empathy
for all the lives you steal,
causing atrocity?

People once made tattoo lamps,
wove felt and yarn from human hair,
concentrated lives in camps
where death was in the air.

People still make leather lamps
and clothes from feather down and hair,
concentrating lives in camps
because they just don’t care.

You’d be a handsome man
except you chill me to the core.
Why can’t you love yourself less
while learning to love others more?

What could make you feel,
stirring your dead empathy
for all the lives you steal,
causing atrocity?

(Intro music again)

Hide behind that hide of yours,
the one so thick it makes me sick,
draping yourself in suede and furs
that cut me to the quick.

Lounge back on your leather chair,
cross your boots of someone’s skin.
I don’t know how you can bear
to wear the hide you’re in.

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