Thursday Lyric: Montreal, December '89

True stories make the most powerful songs. Obviously, this one was brought to mind by recent events.
[Sorry, but the lack of punctuation marks drives me nuts. I'm gonna put them in.]

Montreal, December '89
by Judy Small

It was a cold December afternoon, the line stretched round the block,
And some of them were weeping and some were still in shock.
Seven thousand came that day to pay their last respects
To fourteen women slaughtered for no reason but their sex.
And the cameras and the mikes were there to record the grief and fear
Of the ordinary people who worked and studied here,
And a woman in her fifties in a gentle quiet tone
Summed up her sisters' outrage at the murder of their own.

She said, "I wonder why, as I try to make sense of this,
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist?
Why does 'gunman' sound so familiar while 'gunwoman' doesn't quite ring true?
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do?"

And the man behind her in the line, he started getting steamed.
He said, "It wasn't because he was a man, this guy was crazy, mad, obscene."
"Yes he was crazy," the woman replied, "But women go crazy too.
And I've never heard of a woman shooting fourteen men, have you?"
And all those other times came flooding back to me again:
A hundred news reports of men killing family, strangers, friends.
And yes I can remember one or two where a woman's hand held the gun,
But exceptions only prove the rule and the questions still remain.

And don't you wonder why, as you try to make sense of this,
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist?
Why does "gunman" sound so familiar while "gunwoman" doesn't quite ring true?
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do?

And I know there are men of conscience who aren't like that at all,
Who would never raise a hand in anger and who reject the macho role.
And if you were to ask them about the violence that men do,
I know they'd say they hate male violence too,

And so we wonder why, as we try to make sense of this,
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist?
Why does "gunman" sound so familiar while "gunwoman" doesn't quite ring true?
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do?