13 June 2015

Music Day - For Annie

Trigger warning: suicide.

It's quite nice when a rock band puts out a song that features a string section and even a bit of brass (tasteful brass -- not those Sheila Walsh-esque saxophone solos). Of course, I wouldn't want them to do that all the time -- if I wanted that I'd just listen to classical music -- but every once in a while it's a nice departure.

Here, the strings adds a poignancy to a tragic story that's replayed every day.

The song is about a young person called Annie. It details the loneliness and quiet despair she lives in until she decides to do something about it (which, of course, we've all been told to do through inspirational Facebook pictures, right?). Her solution:

Locked inside the bathroom
She grabs a jar of pills
The medicine that cures
Becomes the poison that kills...

The lyric climaxes here, with that juxtaposition of irony. Without even two measures to let you catch your breath, Greg Volz tells you straight up: it's too late for Annie. She's dead. She's gone. You will never see her again.

And now that they have your attention, they tell you the silver lining (if there can really be one in a situation like this): we each have the power to stop other people's stories from ending this way. There is another Annie somewhere, who hasn't grabbed the pill jar yet... and she could be sitting beside you right now. Your next words to her could be the last she hears.

What would you tell her? What would I tell her?

Title: For Annie
Artist: Petra
Album: Never Say Die
Year: 1981
iTunes here; YouTube here.

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