If you want the right to choose, honk your horn

If you want the right to choose, honk your horn

If you want the right to choose it

And you do not want to lose it

If you want the right to choose, honk your horn.

Sometimes we just chanted this, sometimes we dressed it up with a bit of melody

Calgary Raging Grannies, October 3, 2020 at rally against abortion organized by Life Chain

Save us from Life Chain, please

We wish their noise would cease

For this we sing.

They think abortion’s wrong

Our right to choose, too strong

In their religious throng

The man is king.

If they prevail, we fear

Our rights will disappear

That’s a bad thing.

As for these bods we own

They’re ours and ours alone

Your rules we can’t condone

That’s not our thing.

Save us from Life Chain, please

My voice, my body heeds

For this we sing.

As for these bods we own

They’re ours and ours alone

Save us from Life Chain clones

For this we sing.

Calgary Raging Grannies, 2020 – based on “Save Us from Kavanaugh” by Peggy Rosenthall, Rochester Raging Grannies

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KR_IukhFXE&t=49s

Tune:  If You’re Happy and You Know It

(Start off slowly)

If you want the right to choose, join with us

If you want the right to choose, join with us

When we hear the word abortion

It so often shows distortion

Grannies know we sometimes need to make a fuss.

In the past when men controlled these female bods

And made decisions for us – kind of gods

Took away our right to choose

There were hangers and abuse

We fought so hard for women-centred laws.

With abortion, it’s the women’s voice we trust   

She knows her choices best…. this is a must  

Although it may bring consternation

To religions or a nation

Our bodies simply must belong to us.

We abhor those gory photos now in use

The pregnant person has the right to choose  

You may like it or may lump it

Even Parliaments can’t trump it

A human right – and one we dare not lose.

(rousing last verse)

If you want the right to choose it, clap your hands

If you DO not want to lose it, clap your hands

If you trust in women’s choices….  

(slowly) Over patriarchal voices

Time to fight again and clap your hands!

Calgary Raging Grannies – September 2020

We’re the Raging Grannies and we’re here to take a stand,

To keep choice free for women all across our land.

We won’t go back to hangers if our right to choose is banned!

We’re Rising Up, we’re rising up, our anger has been fanned.

We stand here in Calgary and wonder at your disgrace

That you want women’s and lgbtq rights to melt without a trace

What makes you think you can mess with us, as if we had no rights?

Try it, and you’ll fail –in two million fights!

Spoken That’s how many of us there are!

 We’re mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters, kickin’ up a fuss.

Your wishes end today, there’s no- more -to- dis-cuss!

Adapted from Vicki Ryder (Durham, NC)

Hi-ho, Hi-ho…..As off to bed we go

We Grannies smile because we know

Safe sex – Is quite the best

If you abstain, you`ll suffer much less pain,

But if you don`t, we Grannies say

Safe sex is best.

Hi there, hi there, Like us you must take care.

Pre-think, pre-vent and please pre-pare

Safe sex – is quite the best

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, remember Jill or Joe

AIDS isn`t caught by chance you know

Safe sex is best.

Ho-hey, ho-hey, It could be night or day

Explicit rules we all obey

Safe sex – Is quite the best

Hey-ho, Hey-ho, Life ain`t no TV show

To unprotected sex you say –

(Slowly)     Oh no, oh no, oh NO.

Author: Raging Grannies Songbook, revised by Calgary Raging Grannies, October 1999

 “Heigh-Ho” is a song from Walt Disney‘s 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, written by Frank Churchill (music) and Larry Morey (lyrics)