Songs for Michael´s Oxford speech

MIST · Jan 2, 2014

Think of a tribute to show Michael the humanitarian based on his Oxford speech.
What songs do you think fit with it?
It can be other songs than Michael´s too

I´ll think of

All of us are products of our childhood. But I am the product of a lack of a childhood, an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world, basking in the adoration of parents and relatives, where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come Monday morning.

Love, ladies and gentlemen, is the human family's most precious legacy, its richest bequest, its golden inheritance. And it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another. Previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy. Their houses may have lacked electricity, and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating. But those homes had no darkness, nor were they cold. They were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart. Parents, undistracted by the lust for luxury and status, accorded their children primacy in their lives.

The right to be thought of as adorable - (even if you have a face that only a mother could love).

I have started reflecting on the fact that my father grew up in the South, in a very poor family. He came of age during the Depression and his own father, who struggled to feed his children, showed little affection towards his family and raised my father and his siblings with an iron fist. Who could have imagined what it was like to grow up a poor black man in the South, robbed of dignity, bereft of hope, struggling to become a man in a world that saw my father as subordinate.

In Britain, as many as 20% of families will only sit down and have dinner together once a year.

The various child protection agencies in the US say that millions of children are victims of maltreatment in the form of neglect, in the average year. Yes, neglect. In rich homes, privileged homes, wired to the hilt with every electronic gadget. Homes where parents come home, but they're not really home, because their heads are still at the office. And their kids? Well, their kids just make do with whatever emotional crumbs they get. And you don't get much from endless TV, computer games and videos.

MIST · Jan 3, 2014

12 children under the age of 20 will die from firearms - remember this is a DAY, not a year -

¨
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(Perhaps you don´t know but the song was based on a story where a girl got a gun from her father took it to school and shot some people there.When they asked why she said I don´t like mondays..)

And what about the time-honoured tradition of reading your kid a bedtime story? Research from the 1980s showed that children who are read to, had far greater literacy and significantly outperformed their peers at school. And yet, less than 33% of British children ages two to eight have a regular bedtime story read to them. You may not think much of that until you take into account that 75% of their parents DID have that bedtime story when they were that age.

MIST · Jan 13, 2014

Ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parent-child covenant. Psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one's children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character. And because of all the neglect, too many of our kids have, essentially, to raise themselves. They are growing more distant from their parents, grandparents and other family members, as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations, unravels.

Pity the Child
When I was nine I learned survival
Taught myself not to care
I was my single good companion
Taking my comfort there
Up in my room I planned my conquests
On my own -- never asked for a helping hand
No one would understand
I never asked the pair who fought below
Just in case they said "No."

Pity the child who has ambition
Knows what he wants to do
Knows that he'll never fit the system
Others expect him to
Pity the child who knew his parents
Saw their faults, saw their love die before his eyes
Pity the child that wise
He never asked "Did I cause your distress?"
Just in case they said "Yes."

When I was twelve my father moved out
Left with a whimper -- not with a shout
I didn't miss him -- he made it perfectly clear
I was a fool and probably queer
Fool that I was I thought this would bring
Those he had left closer together
She made her move the moment he crawled away
I was the last the woman told
She never let her bed get cold
Someone moved in -- I shut my door
Someone to treat her just the same way as before.

I took the road of least resistance
I had my game to play
I had the skill, and more -- the hunger
Easy to get away
Pity the child with no such weapons
No defense, no escape from the ties that bind
Always a step behind
I never called to tell her all I'd done
I was only her son!

Pity the child but not forever
Not if he stays that way
He can get all he ever wanted
If he's prepared to pay
Pity instead the careless mother
What she missed,
What she lost when she let me go
And I wonder does she know
I never call. A crazy thing to do
Just in case she said, "Who?"

If I translate the song title from the swedish vesion it says "who sees a child"

Songs for Michael´s Oxford speech

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