Cyndi Lauper was singing about the consequences of an anti-choice world back in 1993, and now, she’s forced to do it all over again. The singer has shared “Sally’s Pigeons (Redux 2022),” a re-recorded version of her abortion rights song from three decades ago. Give it a listen below.
“Sally’s Pigeons” first appeared on Lauper’s 1993 album Hat Full of Stars, and tells the story of the artist’s childhood friend who died as a result of a back-alley abortion. Originally a stark, almost a capella ballad, “Sally’s Pigeons (Redux 2022)” couches Lauper’s weathered modern vocals with mournful piano and acoustic guitar. The artist explained the origins of the updated single in a statement:
“The Supreme Court’s radical decision today makes the re-recording and re-release of ‘Sally’s Pigeons’ more relevant than ever. 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.” Listen to “Sally’s Pigeons (Redux 2022)” below.
The Supreme Court officially overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24th, returning the right whether to legalize abortion back to the states. Taylor Swift, Jack White, and numerous other artists have publicly opposed the move, which will likely lead several states to ban the procedure altogether. In light of the reversal, we rounded up a list of ways you can protect the right to choose.