Maria Daines: MUSIC

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We were asked to write a song on the subject of vivisection by a scientist formerly practising on animals who is now an advocate of animal welfare.

I was informed of a heartbreaking story about two monkeys caged side by side in a laboratory. When one of the monkeys was taken away for surgery and did not return, the remaining monkey was so distressed that it ripped out chunks of its fur and was inconsolable.

Vivisection is intolerable violence towards animals, surgery without consent.

I wanted to convey a conversation between a dog and a monkey in a laboratory. I imagined them chattering between themselves in their cages, each dreaming of what they would do when they got out...alive.

Quote - 'Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character' George Bernard Shaw (narrated by Paul)


Further information -


SAFER MEDICINES CAMPAIGN

EUROPEAN VEGETARIAN AND ANIMAL NEWS AGENCY

THE BERLIN DECLARATION TO END RESEARCH USING PRIMATES

MATT ROSSELL INTERVIEWS DR. JANE GOODALL

MATT ROSSELL INTERVIEWED IN SATYA MAGAZINE



"In actual laboratory experiments monkeys were forced to choose between electro-shocking other monkeys and doing without food themselves. Almost all of the monkeys went hungry for up to two weeks rather than shock others. These macaques, who have never gone to Sunday school, never heard of the Ten Commandments, never squirmed through a single junior high school civics lesson, seem courageous in their moral grounding and their resistance to evil. If the situation was reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well?"

Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in their book
"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors"


Quotes -

"I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further."
Mark Twain


"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas Edison


"...there is something so very dreadful, so satanic in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power, who have weapons neither of offence nor defence, that none but very hardened persons can endure the thought of it"
Cardinal Newman


"Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are like us.' Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: 'Because the animals are not like us.' Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction."
Professor Charles Magel




Our thanks to Mary-Alice Pollard, Cornwall's Voice For Animals, for creating the cover art and video slide film for this song -








- STOP THAT IT HURTS -

When I get out alive I'm gonna climb in trees
N' swing from branches like an eagle flies
When I get out alive...

When I get out alive, gonna run like the wind
N' show my master that I love him
When I get out alive...

When I get out alive I'm gonna eat my food
Without a stomach tube
Oh when I get out alive...

Oh stop that it hurts
You're squeezing me
That thing that you did
It's hurting me
Oh stop it I want my body back
Oh help me...

I watch through the bars
They gave me these scars
They hit me I cry
And I still cry...
Can't help if I bite, I live fear to fight
I long to know peace of eternal light
And I've tried being nice and I've tried being good
I'd just close my eyes and die if I could...

Oh stop that it hurts
You're squeezing me
That thing that you did
It's hurting me,
Oh stop it I want my body back
Oh help me...

Millions of animals die in laboratories every year - too many to count, they are found throughout the world known only by numbers, they are more wretched than humans can ever be, for they don't even have the ability to understand their fate. Their only release is death.

'Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character'

Oh stop that it hurts
You're squeezing me
That thing that you did
It's hurting me,
Oh stop it I want my body back
Oh help me...
Oh stop that it hurts
You're squeezing me
That thing that you do
It's killing me
Oh stop it I want my mum and dad
Oh help me,
Oh... Why don't you help me?

Oh you tame us you break us, you shame us you hate us
You do things unseen with our pain in between
And all for the blood of a corporate greed
And we bleed and we bleed and we bleed
We bleed unseen, oh, we bleed unseen
Oh, unseen, yeah we bleed unseen
Yeah why don't you help us help us help us help us help us?
Yeah we bleed unseen...

© Maria Daines/Paul Killington
All Rights Reserved
(mcps) ASCAP
1.05.06