From My Email Box

Writer Naomi Ragen was sent the following by one of her readers, who asked if she was reading too much into it.  Ragen thought not, and I agree.

Here are lyrics to a song that Sheryl Crow sang on Dancing With the Stars:

Out Of Our Heads

Out Of Our Heads
Lyrics: Bottrell/Crow Music: Bottrell

If you feel you wanna fight me
There's a chain around your mind
When something is holding you tightly
What is real is so hard to find

Losing babies to genocide
Oh where's the meaning in that plight
Can't you see that we've really bought into
Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts

Someone's feeding on your anger
Someone's been whispering in your ear
You've seen his face before
You've been played before
These aren't the words you need to hear

Through the dawn of darkness blindly
You have blood upon your hands
All the world will treat you kindly
But only the heart can understand, oh understand

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

Every man is his own prophet
Oh every prophet just a man
I say all the women stand up, say yes to themselves
Teach your children best you can

Let every man bow to the best in himself
We're not killing any more
We're the wisest ones, everybody listen
'Cause you can't fight this feeling any more, oh anymore

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads
And into our hearts
Children of Abraham lay down your fears, swallow your
tears and look to your heart

Comments

[DRaftervoi]

What are you reading into it? Abraham is the patriarch claimed as ancestral to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Muslims believe they are descendents of Ishmael, Abraham's son, Jesus was a literal descendent of Abraham, and Abrham is the father of the Hebrews.

The genocide line is open ended and non-specific, you can easily apply it to a variety of peoples. From the perspective of the "artiste," I think they're trying to paint with a broad critical brush.

However, I do detect a faint WHIFF of finger-wagging pointing more in the direction of Israel than Iran, but it really requires DIGGING for the ill-will, as opposed to being obvious.

[DRaftervoi]

Also: I am less than impressed by this lyric as a call to peace and reconciliation. Consider the line: "If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads/And into our hearts."

The Artiste never tells us what will happen if we get out of our heads and into our hearts, but presumably the angry Childen of Abraham will stop fighting each other. Uh, what? The head is representative of logic and thought, and the heart represents emotion. Who really thinks that the various conflicts in the Middle East can be solved by everyone thinking less and becomming MORE emotional?

Also, Gail...look at that first verse again. Who is that aimed at? Certainly not the Jews...the "you" is someone who wants to fight Sheryl Crow...who could that be?

[Gail]

I read it as drawing a moral equivalency between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Genocide can't be applied to Jews except as victims and if Israelis have "blood on their hands," it is in self-defense.

Israel is not an aggressor, it is protecting itself.

Ms. Crow is a pious liberal arse.

[draftervoi]

Ah, you're seeing it as her posturing as if she's a Jew speaking to a Muslim? I don't see it that way, I see it as a santimonious outsider lecturing all THREE tribes, but specfically addressing Muslims in that first verse.

[Gail]

No, I see it as a sanctimonius liberal conflating arab aggression with Israel's desire to defend itself.

I admit I could be wrong though. She did, after all, leave out the definitive code words: "cycle of violence."

[Ymarsakar]

We all know that fake liberals charge up the cycle of violence with the cycle of slavery.

[Gail]

Naomi Ragen sent around a follow-up email:

This is Sheryl Crow's explanation of what she wanted the song to mean. I thought, to be fair, we should listen what she has to say. I'll leave it up to you to decide if you accept her view. I thank my listmember for forwarding this to me.

http://www.sherylcrow.com/blog/

dear fans,

I'm thrilled that we are having such an enthusiastic reaction to the song, "Out Of Our Heads" when we play it live. It gives me great hope that we are all on a course toward waking up and embracing the future as our own. To prevent any misunderstanding over the phrase, "Children of Abraham," I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify what this phrase means and what it's inception was.

Abraham is a prominent figure in both the Torah and the Koran, as well as in the Old Testament.* He is claimed by both Arabs and Jews as their ancestor. In a statement from my co-author, Bill Bottrell writes, "The song invokes the phrase, "Children of Abraham" as a plea for peace between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We point a finger at the media and the leaders in any camp who incite hatred based on historical feuds. In the song, all parties are gently challenged to reconcile the past and ignore the war-mongers."

I haven't changed my opinion. I believe Sheryl Crow is unfamiliar with the history of the war between Israel and the Palestinians and speaks of the issues without proper background and context. Media and leaders in Israel are NOT inciting hatred. The song lumps everyone/everything together and arrives at a skewed POV.

*I thought the Torah and the "Old Testament" were the same thing?

[Ymarsakar]

I read that the Torah recorded Jewish legal precedents.

[Leora]

See a post by my friend on the same topic.

Whatever Sheryl Crow really meant (I get a headache trying to figure this song out), she doesn't seem to have much interest in facts.
Who really thinks that the various conflicts in the Middle East can be solved by everyone thinking less and becoming MORE emotional? Good way of putting it.

[compugraphd]

B"H

Thank you, Leora, for mentioning my blog. It's interesting that this whole controversy vis-a-vis Naomi Ragen got me started on writing the blog entry on my Israel and its place in the world blog and that as a comment on that blog entry, I got Ms. Crow's comment re the "Children of Abraham" line.

I had to be more or less diplomatic on my blog in case any of her fans found it (by doing a search on Sheryl Crow), but I think she's one of those "bend over backwards" PC anti-Semites (yes, I know Arabs are Semites but the term "anti-Semite" refers to people who are anti-Jewish) who don't really see themselves as being prejudiced because they hide behind their moral relativism and moral equivalence. It kind of reminds me of a statement made a number (30??? 35???? 40????) of years ago by an American (US) politico saying that the Arabs and Israelis should put aside their differences "like good Christians".

Do you get the idea that someone's just a tad clueless????

[Gail]

I should try to be more diplomatic. I once was. After blogging about it so many times, I've gotten tired of fighting the same thing over and over. The "We Are the World" "Imagine There's no Heaven" sugary sweetness of socialism sounds good and kind on the surface, but it's like falling into a vat of sugar syrup - - you can drown in it. The stuff that tastes so sweet can be deadly. It doesn't intend to be, yet it is.

False propaganda helped to damn the Jews of Europe by setting up the conditions for the Holocaust prior to WW2. Media lies are helping to damn the Israelis too. I worry that it hinders their fight against their enemies and that the results could be devastating. Never again.

Artists like Sheryl Crow are listened to by millions. They all hear the message that it is Israel's fault. That "if only they would...." there would be peace.

It's a LIE. There is nothing they could give, there is nothing that could do that will satisfy the elements that wish to see them annihilated.

We saw what happened when they withdrew from Gaza. Now Sderot is rocketed every day and there is damned little they can do to stop it. When they try to eliminate the kassam launching sites which are hidden among the civilian population, it is trumpeted through the media, "The Israelis are killing Palestinian children."

But what about the Israeli children of Sderot who have 15 seconds to run to bomb shelters when the rockets are aimed toward their schools?

Where is the outrage for their plight?

[DRaftervoi]

So. It is as I said; Crow sees this as a general plea for peace to the Abraham's descendents. As such I have few problems with it, except that pop music is not a prescription for complex political cures - and that it's a pretty squishy admonition.

I cannot parse any clear meaning from some of the couplets. What, exactly, does this mean:

"Losing babies to genocide/Oh where's the meaning in that plight. Can't you see that we've really bought into/Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh"

Reset that first line in normal order and it reads, "Where's the meaning in the plight of losing babies to genocide?"

Okay...a plight is a difficult circumstance, and no one denies that the death of children is a "plight." But who, exactly, claims that they find "meaning" in such a thing?

And whose genocide? The Holocaust? The current desire of Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map? The claims of the Palestinians? Are the Christians in any danger of being exterminated these days, or are they being admonished for committing genocide in the past? If so, where and when? Or are they just being thrown into this to be fair?

This entire couplet is a pile of words that SEEM to mean something, but defy any rational analysis. It's open-ended enough that it means both everything and nothing. My wife just passed through, read it over my shoulder, and said, "So, she hates George Bush" - and she's a big Sheryl Crow fan.

And I repeat: I do not see how MORE emotionalism solves the problems. My heart tells me to KILL MY ENEMIES when they murder my children, and vengeance is about as multi-cultural as you can get. What is needed is a negotiated settlement rigorously enforced AGAINST anyone who is thinking with their heart.

[Ymarsakar]

"Losing babies to genocide/Oh where's the meaning in that plight. Can't you see that we've really bought into/Every word they proclaimed and every lie, oh"

She's refering to how Israel maintains the cycle of violence and does kills babies in their genocide of Palestinians. Israelis say that self-defense has meaning, while she disputes that genocide can have any greater meaning.

[Gail]

I have a problem with the way the lyrics draw a mistaken moral equivalence. Of the three Abrahamic religions, it is Islam that is the biggest aggressor and the greatest impediment to peace at this particular point in time. It is not "all of us" who are causing war. Some are responding to aggression. Some are acting in self-defense.

Drawing such an equivalence causes people to think there's something that the Israelis are doing to earn the violence that is being perpetrated upon them. As Ymarsakar noted, there have been cases of false accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing made against the Israelis. Phony killings have actually been staged for the cameras.

The end result is that the world is not supportive of Israel fighting back.

Sheryl Crow did once famously say, "I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."

Gosh, who could argue with brilliance like that?

[AndyJ]

Crow is obviously not "clinging to religion"... She's probably enlightened and clueless... Assigning the best of motives and parking my cynical self.

You are right. She "doan geddit" that those who defend themselves are not agressors. Those who wear uniforms and fight with a disciplined military are different from those who wear no uniform and hide among civilians. Those who attack armed provacateurs are different from thosew ho maim the innocent.

She has bought into the political cloak and cover of thugs and killers who are terrorists. She is listening to their apologists who have spun her views -if they were ever focused- into a blenderized "all the same" apologia.

This confuses and stops action against the perpetrators and hampers support for defenders and victims. It is a mental/ethical/moral bit of ju-jitsu that we should not allow to continue. Terrorists are thugs and killers. They are the racketeers, criminals, and underground warlords we see in organized crime and gangs. They have no desires or ability to govern and create a prosperous, healthy, happy community for raising the next generations... They are thugs for whom power makes profits.

Let's stop the pretense.

[draftervoi]

Viewing Middle Eastern conflict(s) as an equation where Judaism = Christianity = Islam is a bad lyrical metaphor. Christianity occupies a minority status in EVERY country in the area, which can’t be said about Islam or Judaism. There is one very large issue, which is the acceptance or denial of the Israel as a state. There are sectarian issues dividing each of the religions, combined with ethnic, political, and economic conflicts. Crow naively simplifies the issue to the obvious religious one, and offers no real solutions.