Melissa Etheridge Talks Writing Song Inspired by Orlando Shooting
Following the shooting in Orlando on June 12th at the Pulse nightclub that left 50 dead and dozens in critical condition, the worst on a specifically gay gathering in the country’s history, singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge says she was inspired to pen a new song in reaction to the news.
Etheridge had performed the night before at the Michigan Cannabis Cup and was on her tour bus when she heard the news Sunday morning. “It was a whole other world of peace and love and understanding, and then I saw the news,” the singer says. “I’m at the saturation point now of all of those things, all these mass shootings. It was like all our fears just exploded in Orlando. Is it Muslim terrorism? Is it a gay attack? It was just too much, it really pushed everything over the top.”
She arrived at her apartment in New York City to visit her daughter who is currently attending Columbia University. There, in lower Manhattan, she saw One World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, with its spire lit with rainbow colors in solidarity with the Orlando victims. It inspired her to write a song about the tragic events.
“I’m dealing with it the way I deal, which is, I wrote a song,” she says. “I have a view of the Freedom Tower, which was lit up in rainbow colors last night. I just sat here, and I just started writing a song. I am going to record it today with Jerry Wonda at Platinum Sound, who produced a lot of my stuff on my last album. That’s how I first started to cope because, as a singer songwriter, I feel very… I’ve done this before. I feel called to speak; to do what musicians do. We’ve been the town criers for hundreds of years. We’re mirrors of society. We want to try to make sense. We want to try to heal. We want to bring some meaning, some purpose. We also want to put it down forever in history. That’s how I’m coping.
“I’m hoping I can just drop it because that’s what heals me – just feeling like I can put some ointment on this. You know, this sort of lets you realize that, yes, it was a gay club and it was a club filled with the sons and daughters, you know, and human beings of all races, all ages. It had to be everybody, so, yeah, we’re gonna do some healing because that’s what our community does. I think that was our path from the beginning.”
Etheridge says that the song is still “rough and raw,” but that at this point it’s titled “Pulse,” after the name of the club in Orlando where the shooting took place.
“There’s just something very poetic and very meaningful about the name of the club, Pulse,” she explains. “You just start thinking about your own pulse. You come up with: ‘Everybody’s got a pulse/ Love will always win because underneath the skin, everybody’s got a pulse.’ It’s the way I’ve always felt about the gay movement, the gay issue. Here we are – people who are loving; we are fighting for who we want to love.
“When such violence, when such horrible hideous violence is turned against people who are loving, it’s like the greatest of the opposites just clashing,” she says. “That’s where my heart always goes. When it comes to my community, the gay community, it doesn’t make sense to me, to be so vilified and so hated for who we love. It’s something that doesn’t make sense.”
Etheridge says she understands that people may be fearful of returning to nightclubs, concerts and celebrations, especially during the month of June, when many events are planned for LGBT pride around the country and world. But she hopes people won’t be frightened away from celebrating.