27 June 2022

In wake of the Roe v. Wade reversal, New York’s pop heroine CYNDI LAUPER
has re-recorded her 1993 abortion rights anthem SALLY’S PIGEONS.

Lauper: “In my childhood, women didn’t have reproductive freedom and 50 years later
we find ourselves in a time warp where one’s freedom to control their own body has been stripped away. When I wrote this song with Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1991, we wrote about
two little girls who dreamt of stretching their wings like the pigeons they watched that flew above them. They dreamt of being free. But freedom then for women and unfortunately now comes at a big price. If we don’t have control over our own bodies then we have no real freedom. We are second class citizens. We need to mobilize. We need to let our voices be heard.”

The song was inspired by the death of a childhood friend of Lauper‘s
who got pregnant in her teens following a back-alley abortion.

Lyrics

When I was eight I had a friend
With a pirate smile
Make believe and play pretend
We were innocent and wild
Hopped a fence and slammed the gate
Running down my alleyway
In time to watch Sally’s pigeons fly

We loved to watch them dive and soar
Circle in the sky
Free as a bird from three to four
And never knowing why
Neighbors pulled their wash back in
Put away my Barbie and Ken
Look out overhead
While Sally’s pigeons fly

I had a fool’s confidence
That the world had no boundaries
But instincts and common sense
Come in different quantities

My heart began to skip to the beat
Of the boy next door
She had her eye across the street
On someone shy and tall
We lived our dreams
And challenged fate
In tears she told me she was late
And Sally let his pigeons out to fly

On the dresser sits a frame
With a photograph
Two little girls in ponytails
Some twenty one years back
She left one night with just a nod
Was lost from some back alley job
I close my eyes and Sally’s pigeons fly
She never saw those birds again
And me, I can’t remember when
A pirate smile hasn’t made me cry
I close my eyes
And Sally’s pigeons fly

Music

CYNDI LAUIPER: Instagram

(Image on top: cover of Lauper‘s best of album)