I wrote this song in January 2011, shortly after a mass shooter in Tucson put a bullet through Representative Gabrielle Giffords’ head and killed six others. I hesitate posting it to social media because I don’t want to appear to be exploiting a recent massacre. But there always seems to be a recent massacre. Last April, I found out that the song was a winner in the 2017 Great American Song Contest (50 winners out of 1800 entries). No cash prize, but I got this nifty certificate of recognition. Fun fact: the evaluator took this bit of satire as a pro-gun statement. S/he gave me a 9 out of 10 score for “Clarity/Theme Progression” in spite of the misunderstanding. It occurred to me that if I pointed out the error, they might ask for the prize back and hold me responsible for the postage, so I left well enough alone.

Lyric