Green Pajamas Issue Phoebe Prince Song

This is important: Haunting and mesmerizing tune pays tribute to the young girl who was victimized by bullies. Hear the track below.

By Fred Mills

BLURT faves the Green Pajamas have just released a new song based on the sad story of Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide following intense bullying from schoolmates in Massachusetts in January of this year. "The Red, Red Rose" is performed by Jeff Kelly and Laura Weller and was was written by Kelly to express his anger and sadness over the incident, one which shocked and outraged parents across the U.S. and has prompted numerous school systems to examine their policies towards bullying.

The stark yet propulsive tune is, in a word, haunting, recalling vintage Sandy Denny-era Fairport Convention as envisioned through a dark psychedelic lens - and we defy anyone not to feel a lump in the throat when Kelly gets to the lines, "One January afternoon/ They killed you in your school clothes." Please listen to this song; it's an important one. Much like Neil Young's "Ohio" brought the Kent State deaths of 1970 into focus, "The Red, Red Rose" helps crystallize both the emotions and nuances of a tragedy that sometimes get obscured in the black-and-white world of news reports.

It will be released worldwide as a digital single this month. Meanwhile, it's currently streaming at the group's MySpace page and the home page of their label, Green Monkey Records. We've also got the YouTube stream of it below.

The Red, Red Rose

(Song for Phoebe Prince)

So, nevermore to see the sunrise

And nevermore the ocean wide

And not to taste the snow of morning

On the tongue of one so mild

And nevermore your eyes in laughter

That lately held but only tears

That lately gazed with only sorrow

Across a life of so few years

One January afternoon

They killed you in your school clothes

As sure as winter's cruel hands

Clutch and kill the red, red rose

So, lost we are to ever hold you

Lost forever, thanks to those

Who built you gallows just as sure

As the first freeze kills the red, red rose.