If you have never heard the song before it is about a boy who finds his father’s gun and… well the chorus speaks for itself:
“All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
you better run, better run, outrun my gun.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
you better run, better run faster than my bullet.”
So you can see what the song is about. If you heard it on the radio you might find your head bobbing to its very catchy, pop beat. Actually, that is exactly how I originally came across the song, and after the second or third round of the chorus I realized what was being said and I felt a sense of shock and disbelief come over me.
Over the past few years I’m not sure if it is that I am getting older and more cynical or if being a mom has made me more sensitive. I just wonder if kids are just getting so desensitized to the point of indifference that soon nothing will affect them anymore.
Tonight this twenty something girl was singing this song with her pink streaked hair, cute outfit, perfect makeup and Crest White smile and it just seemed so very wrong. As I sat and watched the words coming out of her mouth I wondered if anyone else thought that she was just so completely disconnected to the song. J Lo and Keith Urban told her how great of a job she did my heart sank a little more. Finally, I felt a lot better when Harry Connick Jr. pointed out the solemness of the song and how as an artist she should consider the lyrics and maybe try and to understand what the song is actually about before she sings it. But, the other two judges continued to jump to her defense and I just couldn't watch anymore. Her disconnect to the song seemed so apparent but they defended her because she can sing and so what if the song was about kids killing kids.
It wasn’t just this song tonight that I have issues with but the show is getting the brunt of my frustration. It seems to be the road some youth are headed down and unfortunately I don’t see anything making it change. Last year I had to have a conversation with Jaden about why he cannot play games like Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. Jody and I try and raise our kids to know that violence isn’t a game. I feel strongly that violent behavior is not to be glamorized. I have always felt strongly about not allowing my kids to play that stuff, not because I don’t think they can handle it. A lot of kids can play it and do not become serial killers. Just as not all serial killers were exposed to violence at a young age but how do you know who your kids will be when they grow up? At age 9 and 11 my kids still have a lot of growing up to do. The people they are now will change when they are 16, 21 or even 30 and 40. Does mental illness always show up at a young age or can it creep up when they are in their 20’s or 30’s. I figure my kids have plenty of time to play those games when they are a little more mature and can really understand death and violence on a more mature level.
This is all coming from the same girl that back in college wrote a research paper on whether or not listening to heavy metal would make suicidal teens kill themselves. The question I posed was can you blame the music for something that was already in a person’s head? And, now as a parent I wonder if we are giving kids too much leeway and credit to understand what they are seeing and just expecting that they will turn out alright. I turned out okay listening my share of Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy Osborne and Motley Crue but I didn’t spend a couple hours a day blowing people away in a lifelike war zone while listening to that stuff. That’s probably good considering my serious bout of depression in my mid-twenties and a family history of schizophrenia. But do you see what I am saying?
I don’t hold the girl singing the song tonight responsible for her lack of empathy or emotional attachment to the song. It’s like when a sixteen year old on the show sings about all the heartbreak she has been through her whole life. It just doesn’t come across that these kids understand. They are looking to become a star, not change the world and I get that. It’s a show and I know what these kids are there to do. I do however know that sick feeling I get when I see another shooting has taken place at a movie theater, mall or school. And when the shooting is done by a kid I’m even more saddened because it really is such a grown up thing to hold them accountable for. I just hope parents are trying to teach their kids that all life is precious and killing is not a game or to be taken so lightly… Even for the sake of a game, art or a singing contest.