[IP] ABC News: School Talent Show Draws Secret Service
School Talent Show Draws Secret Service
Colorado Band Singing Dylan Song Seen as Threatening President Bush
- Parents and students say they are outraged and offended by a proposed
band name and song scheduled for a high school talent show in Boulder
this evening, but members of the band, named Coalition of the Willing,
said the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
The students told ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver they are
performing Bob Dylan's song "Masters of War" during the Boulder High
School Talent Exposé because they are Dylan fans. They said they want
to express their views and show off their musical abilities.
But some students and adults who heard the band rehearse called a radio
talk show Thursday morning, saying the song the band sang ended with a
call for President Bush to die.
Threatening the president is a federal crime, so the Secret Service was
called to the school to investigate.
Students in the band said they're just singing the lyrics and not
inciting anyone to do anything.
The 1963 song ends with the lyrics: "You might say that I'm young. You
might say I'm unlearned, but there's one thing I know, though I'm
younger than you, even Jesus would never forgive what you do ... And I
hope that you die and your death'll come soon. I will follow your
casket in the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered down
to your deathbed. And I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that
you're dead."
'We Were Just Singing'
The students told KMGH they never threatened the president and never
changed the lyrics to the song.
"It's just Bob Dylan's song. We were just singing Bob Dylan's song ...
If you think it has to do with Bush that's because you're drawing your
own conclusions. We never conveyed that Bush was the person we were
talking about," said Allysse Wojtanek-Watson, a singer for the band.
"She never said anything about killing Bush ... It's crazy, it's chaos.
We have nothing in there it says about killing Bush," band leader
Forest Engstrom told KMGH.
The principal of the school said he stands behind the students.
"Never was it rehearsed or auditioned with a change of lyrics. I want
to be very clear about that," Boulder principal Ron Cabrera said.
Cabrera said Secret Service agents questioned him for 20 minutes and
took a copy of the lyrics. They did not ask to speak to any of the
students but they did question a teacher who had supervised a student
protest that was held at the school last weekend.
Despite the controversy, the Boulder School District said it will allow
the students to perform this evening.
"Boulder High School has expectations for the appropriateness of talent
show acts and those expectations are communicated to the performers.
Over the course of the rehearsals, the faculty has worked with the
performers to create a show that falls within those expectations.
School staff have monitored the performance and spoken with the
students and are satisfied that the performance is simply student
expression and not a threat against anyone," Boulder Schools
spokeswoman Susan Cousins said in a statement.
During the rehearsals for the show, teachers Jim Vacca and Jim
Kavanaugh played backup in the band at the students' request but the
teachers decided not to perform this evening because they don't want to
detract from the students' performance, Cousins said.
The band had at one point considered calling itself The TaliBand, but
the students decided against it after discussing with Vacca whether the
name would be offensive to some people, she said.
Promoting a 'Leftist View?'
Vacca praised a group of 70 students after they camped out overnight in
the school library last week to protest the results of the presidential
election and to announce their worries about the direction of the
country. The students wanted to meet with Colorado's political leaders
to get assurances that they were being heard.
The students said they worried about war, a return of the draft and the
future of the environment after the election in which they could not
participate.
"In an age where narcissistic college students riot in an inarticulate
drunken stupor, you have students here at Boulder High School,
principled, thoughtful and yet scared of four more years of pre-emptive
war, the Patriot Act and an increase in militarism at school through
the No Child Left Behind Act," Vacca had said. But other people said
they are upset students and teachers are allowed to put on such a
performance, and some say the high school students are being
manipulated by the adults.
"These kids are being used to promote an extreme leftist point of view
on the taxpayers' dime," Boulder resident James Lemons told KMGH.
He said other students who saw the tryouts and were upset by the
presentation discussed it with their parents but are afraid of speaking
up because of the political environment within the school and in
Boulder, considered the most liberal city in Colorado.
The principal said Lemons' accusations and allegations are untrue and
unfounded.
"I feel that the school and these students have been accused without
being able to confront their accusers," Cabrera said, adding that no
student or parent had talked to him about the allegations. "Why would
someone do that?"
Copyright © 2004 ABC News Internet Ventures
<http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=247437>
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