Category Archives: Mental Health

Gaggle for Crisis Centers

tune: Side by Side

Oh, we’re a Gaggle of Grannies
Urging you off of your fannies
We’re raising our voice
We do have a choice:
Get out the vote!

With so many who’re hurtin
We only know one thing for certain
We have power to persuade
The friends we have made.
Get out the vote.

The people in the ER’s
The folks out on the street
We all feel hopeless
To meet the needs we see.

So join this Gaggle of Grannies
Get up off of your fannies
We’re urging you how
Pass the levy right now:
Get out the vote:
We really mean it: Get out the vote
We mean precisely: Get out the vote
We will say it very nicely: Get out the vote
Read our lips: Get out the vote!

Stand and Deliver

  • tune: Sweet Betsy from Pike
     by Carolyn Hale

Come all you great leaders at Olympia’s heart—
Don’t fail the needy, please do your part.
We hear you support us, but wait in the cold.
Funded programs are coming, we’ve been told and told.

The counselors are caring, but they need real pay,
And time to help clients, not just wave “g’day.”
If we can fund stadiums, fund care programs, too!
Let caring increase! We are talking to you!

There a proven care programs to consider.
Let’s stand up together and show: NOW DELIVER!
Come all you great leaders at Olympia’s heart!
Yes, hear our plea and now do your part.

Singin’ too rah di oo rah li oo rah li ay.
Sing’ too rah lioo rah li oo rah li ay!

Be Kind to the Mentally Ill

  • tune: Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends

BE kind to the mentally ill,
For that kook may be somebody’s mother
Be kind to the weird in the street
They are some of the smartest folks you’ ll meet.
Now, you may think that drugs are a cure Well, they AREN’T

You are kind to your poet friend Lyn
You know she and the Grannies are kin
You’re kind even when she is late
And has put much too much on her plate.
Now, you may think that she’s scatter-brained
Well, she is!

Scary Blues

  • by Carolyn Hale, Laurie Rostholder, Monica Zucker 
  • tune: Button Up Your Overcoat

I am seeing scary things.
No one does but me.
I can’t afford my meds.
Why aren’t they free?

Spent three days in hospital,
Gave me some bus fare.
Is there a place for me?
Can’t remember where.

Do I have food to eat?—no, no.
Place to sleep?—no, no.
Care and friends?—no, no.
Make a scene and end up in the pokey.

Fewer beds are there for me.
I need help, not jail.
We need to organize—
Must the system fail?

Saints- Health/Mental Health

  • tune: When the Saints Come Marching In

When care is spelled L-O-V-E,
When care is spelled L-O-V-E,
How I want to be in that number,
When care is spelled L-O-V-E.

  • Variations:

When health care is a right for all…

When mental health gets parity…

When people’s needs come first of all…

When facts are known and stigma ends…

When the message is that treatment works…

When care and hope give us new strength…

On the Streets Where We Live

  • by Monica Zucker
  • tune: On the Street Where You Live

You must understand why we live out here.
You must know that we need not be any cause of fear.
We need treat-ment, and insurance,
Or we can’t leave the streets where we live.

There are centers now where we could get care.
If you’d fund them we’d escape this awful, long nightmare.
No more jailing, no institutions—
We’d get off of the streets where we live.

And oh, that wonderful feeling!
To have care and jobs and a life,
And homes that further our healing,
And lives restored and joy and freedom from strife!

So fund mental health just like heart disease.
Take us off the streets and shelters and the jailhouse—please!
Let us live our lives with our families—
And not die on the streets where we live.

Ode to the Mentally Ill

  • by Carolyn Hale
  • tune: I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Mental illness, hell, I’m (we’re) crazy,
But there is a person here.
I am (we are) taking medication
Whose names make me (us) despair.

Every day we are courageous.
People need to know the scoop:
We need housing,
We need jobs,
We need kind attention
To be a member of a group.

We’re not strangers and we’re lonely.
Why don’t you want us around.
We’re ignored and forgotten—
No wonder our anger abounds.

No one seems to want to help us
With the services we need.
Fifty million suffering persons
Waiting for acceptance—
One in four is in your family! (whisper: WOW!)