Peter Tracy: Music

Free Thinker

(Peter Tracy)

I have been an atheist all my life and have written several songs that deal with my views on religion. Yesterday, I got a newsletter from a group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation or FFRF. It was very inspiring and I will be joining them this week. Here is just a little info from their flyer. “In modern times, the first to speak out for prison reform, for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, for the abolition capital punishment, for woman’s right to vote, for death with dignity for terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have all been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery. The foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of church and state” Well, amen! These are my kind of people.

So immediately after reading their newsletter I wrote a song about them. Hope they like it.

Freethinker, freethinker, you think for yourself
your authority comes from nobody else
you alone can determine your inherent worth
And your haven or hell it is right here on earth

You’re wary of leaders, you don’t follow the crowd
and you’re liable to laugh when no laughing’s allowed
At things some call sacred you just find absurd
Of prophets and saviors you don’t buy a word

You’ve been persecuted through out history
fanatics have always been your enemy
to be a freethinker is all it would take
for you to be tortured and burned at the stake
Now we don’t do torture here anymore
we prefer to outsource it to some foreign shore
fascism is spreading all over this land
and dogma and fascism go hand in hand

Yes fascism’s making a comeback today
now we see our civil rights slipping away
separation of church and stat under attack
if we don’t defend it we won’t get it back