(from interview — lyrics by R. C. Curtis and Paulina Logan)
[Female, thirty-six years-old]
I grew up in the Midwest
In a rural and very small town
We always ate meat and I knew quite well
Where it was from.
It was just part of life,
In the Midwest
In a rural and very small town.
As time went by
It bothered me
That they had to die —
But what could I do?
You think you need meat to survive
And I hardly knew
An example of what it was like
To be vegetarian –
Well, there was this one girl
A junior high friend
Who didn’t like meat
Didn’t care for the taste of it,
Which I found kind of strange
In the Midwest
In a rural and very small town.
I struggled with my conscience for a long time
Then when I was twenty-two
One day I felt sure
I didn’t want meat
and I thought,
Let’s see what happens
Let’s just see what happens . . .
Thus began my great experiment
I’d be the first girl,
Okay, the second Midwestern girl,
To live without eating meat.
So I gave it a go, one day at a time,
No big commitment, just give it a try.
The first day: okay, I didn’t die,
Then the day after that and the day after that
And on the fourth day
I awoke to discover – that I was still alive!
And I was a vegetarian!
And soon after that I looked at dairy and I looked at eggs,
And I didn’t like what I saw —
All the abuse, the suffering and cruelty—
Was just as bad, maybe worse
What I had to do became very clear to me.
You can probably guess the next verse:
This girl from the Midwest
From a rural and very small town . . .
Went vegan!
My family did find it all a bit odd
But over time, they saw that it wasn’t a phase
And you’d be amazed how supportive they are
It’s part of my life, you see,
It’s the right thing for me.
When my sister gets back from the Peace Corps
She plans to become vegetarian
Even my mom is thinking that way
And my father and brothers . . .
Well, who knows, maybe one day, maybe one day.
Anymore it’s easy to separate
What you eat from what came before,
You don’t see what the animals had to await,
When it’s so nicely packaged there at the store,
I mean, I’m not a militant, not out to convert,
I’m not out to scare,
I just plant little seeds here and there
And one day, maybe one day
All those seeds of compassion will take root and grow
And it will be part of life everywhere, all around – – –
Even in the Midwest, in a rural and very small town.
