Abraham Lincoln wasn’t the person we imagine. In public, he might have been a famous orator who could stand in front of crowds and stir the spirits of thousands. But in private, he was a dark and troubled man.

For all the political troubles Lincoln shouldered without a word of complaint, he struggled to stand up to the weight of his personal problems. He battled suicidal thoughts, a deep depression, and a life full of tragedy and unhappiness. And it made him a very different man than the one suggested by his stoic face.

10 He Was Afraid To Carry Knives Because He Might Kill Himself

On the surface, Lincoln seemed like a fun-loving joker. He would go out with the mask of a smile on his face and crack filthy jokes, letting everyone think he was the cheeriest man alive. When he was alone, though, he struggled with crippling depression.

He told a friend that he “never dared carry a knife in his pocket”^[1] out of fear that he’d kill himself. It wasn’t an unwarranted fear—he very nearly did it more than once.

In winter 1840, Lincoln spiraled into a terrible depression. He was engaged to Mary Todd but had fallen in love with another woman named Matilda Edwards. He couldn’t bring himself to call off his wedding. But the emotional struggle was tearing him apart.

In the words of a colleague, “Lincoln went crazy as a loon.” Lincoln had a mental breakdown, becoming unable to work or do anything but sit and talk about how horribly miserable he was.

He may not have carried a knife in his own pocket on any day, but his friends couldn’t trust him to have a blade anywhere in his home during his dark moments. They went through his house, pulling out every kitchen knife and shaving razor, convinced that Lincoln would kill himself if he was left alone for a second.

9 He Jumped Out A Window

Lincoln still made it into the office a few times that winter, but his behavior wasn’t completely sane. One day in December 1840, in the middle of a legislative session, Abraham Lincoln jumped out the window.

It wasn’t exactly a suicide attempt. Lincoln and his party, the Whigs, were trying to keep the session from closing. They were about to lose a vote that would have forced the State Bank to make payments it couldn’t afford, and Lincoln knew the bank would go bankrupt if they didn’t stop the vote.

There was a loophole that could keep it from happening. If they had one less Whig in the building, Lincoln realized, the vote technically wouldn’t be valid. So he made sure there was one less Whig. He threw himself out the window.^[2]

Most people treated it as some political novelty act. Lincoln wasn’t hurt, and the Democrats joked it was because he was so tall that “his legs reached nearly from the window to the ground.”

Today, though, we know that Lincoln was suicidally depressed at this time in his life. He may have been helping his party, but there might be more than one reason why he jumped out that window.

8 He Stopped His First Political Speech To Fight Someone

Lincoln was a champion wrestler. He fought more than 300 matches and only lost one. For as much as he looked like a thin and lanky man, he was pure muscle up close. Nearly every description we have of him called him “sinewy” and “gifted with great strength.”

He put it to use. In 1832, when he was just 23 years old, Lincoln made his first political speech. He said only a few short words—because he wanted to fight someone.

Two people in the crowd had broken into a fight. Lincoln saw that a supporter who had egged him on to get on the stage was being attacked. The massive, 193-centimeter (6’4”) former wrestling champion and future president stopped talking, stepped down from the platform, and lifted up the troublemaker by the seat of his pants. Then Lincoln threw the man as hard as he could, making him go flying 4 meters (12 ft) according to one witness.^[3]

7 He Started A Riot

Lincoln liked to fight, and he would rise to any challenge. One farmer who lived near Lincoln’s home said that he once asked Lincoln if he could kill a hog with his bare hands. According to the farmer, the young Lincoln told him, “If you will risk the hog, I’ll risk myself.”

When a man named William Grigsby challenged him to a fight, though, Lincoln didn’t offer him as much respect as he gave hogs. Grigsby, he felt, wasn’t enough of a challenge to be worth his while. So Lincoln had Grigsby fight his stepbrother, John Johnson, to give Grigsby a chance.

Enough of a challenge for Johnson, Grigsby started winning. But Lincoln didn’t play fair. When he saw his stepbrother was losing, Lincoln picked up Grigsby and threw him into the crowd. Then he stared down every person there and yelled, “I’m the big buck of this lick! If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns!”^[4]

There were dozens of people there—and every one of them erupted into a massive fistfight. Some started swinging for Lincoln, and others swung in his defense. Soon, the whole street was in a riot, sparked by a man who would one day be on the back of the penny.

6 He Watched His First Love Die

Long before he’d met Mary Todd, Abraham Lincoln was in love with someone else: Ann Rutledge. He was still in law school when they met, and she was engaged to marry another man, John MacNamar. She and Lincoln fell in love, though, and Ann promised to break off her engagement with MacNamar.

At the time, MacNamar was in London and Ann insisted on telling him in person. While she and Lincoln waited for MacNamar to return, Ann caught typhoid fever and became deathly ill. Lincoln visited her every day.

“I can never forget how sad and brokenhearted Lincoln looked when he came out of the room from the last interview with Annie,” Ann’s sister, Nancy Rutledge, would later recall. “No one knows what was said at that meeting, for they were alone together.”^[5]

Ann died, and Lincoln had no choice but to move on. This, though, was one of the first times that Lincoln’s friends would truly worry about his suicidal thoughts. It was said that he was “insane for a year after Annie’s death, with grief.”

5 He Was Considered Hideous

When you picture the Gettysburg Address, you might want to picture Lincoln’s voice a couple of octaves higher. According to every description we have, Lincoln’s voice was “high” and “shrill.”

Lincoln’s voice grated on people, and his face wasn’t much better. He was considered hideous, and even Lincoln accepted it. Once, when accused of being “two-faced,” Lincoln famously snapped back, “If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?”

It all must have worn on him. One story reveals that Lincoln had a little vanity about how he looked. In 1860, while he was running for president, Lincoln received a letter from an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell. “Let your whiskers grow,” Bedell told him. “All the ladies like whiskers, and they would tease their husbands to vote for you.”^[6]

Lincoln must have been excited by the idea of finally being seen as handsome. He started growing his beard that day. By Inauguration Day, he had the full beard he’s known for today. If Bedell questioned whether she’d convinced him to grow it out, she didn’t have to wonder for long. Shortly after getting into office, Lincoln asked to meet her.

“Gracie, look at my whiskers,” the president told the young girl. “I have been growing them for you.”

4 There Were Rumors That He’d Impregnated Three Women

Despite modern rumors that Lincoln was gay, he was seen as a ladies’ man in his own time. He was known for having a “strong passion for women” and described as a man who “could scarcely keep his hands off them.”

Rumors about Lincoln’s sex-crazed mind went around the town. One farmer claimed that Lincoln had asked him to let Lincoln know whenever a mare came in so that he could watch the horses breed.

That was only the start of it, though. There were also rumors that he was secretly the father of Mrs. Abell’s daughter—and Mrs. Duncan’s and Mrs. Armstrong’s children, too. At least three babies in town, if the rumors are to be believed, were Lincoln’s secret love children.

Later, when he became president, he invited Mrs. Armstrong—the alleged mother of his secret bastard child—to see him in the White House. Rumors perked up again, with the people in town spreading gossip that she was off to have an affair with Honest Abe.

Mrs. Armstrong, though, laughed them off by saying, “It was not every woman who had the fortune and honor of sleeping with a president.”^[7]

3 He Almost Cheated On Mary Todd With A Prostitute

During Lincoln’s year of depression in 1840, he visited a prostitute. His friend Joshua Speed hooked him up after Lincoln asked, “Speed, do you know where I can get some?” Speed, who had been a frequent visitor to one girl in town, wrote Lincoln a note, told him where to go, and promised he would get in.

At the time, Lincoln would have been dating Mary Todd. The date isn’t certain, but the two may already have been engaged. Lincoln, though, went through the darkest year of his life in 1840, and it seems that he tried to take a night’s refuge in a brothel.

However, he was still a poor man. When Lincoln made it in and found out that the night would cost him $5, he had to admit that he only had $3. “I’ll trust you, Mr. Lincoln, for $2,” the prostitute tried to reassure him. But Lincoln wouldn’t do it.

“I do not wish to go on credit,” Lincoln said, buttoning up his pants. “I’m poor, and I don’t know where my next dollar will come from, and I cannot afford to cheat you.”

Not wanting to waste the prostitute’s time, Lincoln tried to give her the $3 he had. But she wouldn’t take it. He left, refusing to accept her services if he couldn’t pay an honest rate. As he walked out, the prostitute said, “You are the most conscientious man I ever saw.”^[8]

2 He Nearly Fought A Duel With Broadswords

In 1842, Abraham Lincoln picked up a broadsword and nearly fought another man, 36-year-old James Shields, to the death.

Lincoln, who had fancied himself something of a writer, penciled up a short story that was mostly just two characters making fun of Shields. At one point, he had a character say, “Shields is a fool as well as a liar.” At another, he had Shields show up and apologize for not being able to marry every woman in Springfield by saying, “It is not my fault that I am so handsome and so interesting.”

The real-world Shields demanded an apology, and Lincoln refused. So Shields challenged Lincoln to a duel. Duel rules, though, meant that Lincoln got to pick the weapon and the place. So the massively tall Lincoln chose broadswords “of the largest size.” They would fight, he declared, with a 30-centimeter (12 in) plank between them, making it impossible for Shields to reach Lincoln.^[9]

He thought Shields would just give up, but the ever-prideful Shields went out to the field anyway to fight an unwinnable battle. Lincoln was ready to kill Shields if he had to. Lincoln only avoided cutting his career short with a homicide when one of Mary Todd’s relatives managed to convince the men to calm down.

1 He Nearly Left Mary Todd At The Altar

We mentioned earlier that Lincoln nearly left Mary Todd for Matilda Edwards. But he wasn’t the only one with his doubts.

Mary Todd was out flirting with other men as well—and likely doing more than just batting her eyes. She would later admit, “For two years before my marriage, that I doubtless trespassed many times.” Most of those trespasses were with a man named Stephen Douglas, and there’s every reason to believe that Lincoln knew exactly what his fiancee was up to.

Lincoln and Mary ended up getting married, though. At least one historian believes that happened because Mary got pregnant.^[10] Mary and Lincoln would meet up in private at a friend’s home. While we don’t know for sure what they did there, we know that one day Lincoln went from wanting to call it off to deciding he was going to marry her the very next day.

In a letter to a friend, Lincoln wrote that he “shall have to” marry Mary Todd. Given how quickly they got married, this strongly suggests that a baby was behind the decision.

Either way, Lincoln definitely wasn’t too happy on his wedding day. A witness said that Lincoln “looked as if he was going to the slaughter.” When someone asked Lincoln where he was going, he replied, “To hell, I suppose.”

Going into surgery can be scary enough; depending on the procedure, there can be many steps and preventative measures that need to be taken to ensure that the patient will recover completely. Trusting in the staff, from the nurses to the doctors to the surgeons themselves, is a leap of faith.

TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and ER have prepared the viewer to expect the worst: blood flying, body parts being cut off, organs not getting there in time. The reality is less dramatic—well, almost. With an estimated 28 million surgeries preformed yearly, mistakes can be made.^[1] However, the mistakes made in the following surgeries are those stemming from the creation of one’s worst nightmares. Ranging from towels to needles to even whole instruments, patients found out after they left the operating room that they were left with mementos from their procedures they hadn’t expected, or wanted.

Though surgeries may not be a dramatic as they are on TV, finding out that something is in your body that shouldn’t be isn’t what you want to hear after you’ve already been sewn back up.

10 The Gloves Are Off

Having surgery to stop her heavy menstruation was supposed to be the end of one French woman’s problems. The procedure, which she underwent in April 2017, was new, something that would be aid in stopping periods without being a full-blown hysterectomy.^[2] The promise was that once her surgery was completed, she wouldn’t be experiencing any more bleeding or pain.

However, the woman, who was told her operation went well and that there were no complications, did not feel anything near relief. After her surgery, she began feeling pain in her lower adbomen—the exact reason she had gone in to begin with. This pain led to a loss of sleep and her constantly feeling ill. Unable to handle it any longer, she called her doctor, who attributed it to her weight and gave her painkillers.

The painkillers did nothing to stop her pain, however, and after three days, she began to feel sharp stabs of pain due to contractions. Her contractions resulted in her pushing out a glove and five compresses that had been left inside her during her procedure, as well as a large pool of blood that led to her being sent to the hospital.

A similar case happened to a woman in England in 2013, when a routine hysterectomy left the woman in severe pain. The pain continued three days after Sharon Birks’s surgery, and she was provided antibiotics by her doctors, as they believed her procedure had likely resulted in an infection.

However, the pain didn’t stop. Though Mrs. Burks began to believe it was her catheter, a trip to the bathroom proved otherwise. While in the bathroom, the pain was accompanied by pressure, and a surgical glove came out of her. While no damage occurred, the experience itself was apparently horrifying enough.

Talk about unexpected births.

9 Needle In A Haystack

The old adage “finding a needle in a haystack” relates to trying to find something that cannot easily be found. In this case, the adage applies to a Tennessee man who died after surgeons left a needle inside him in May 2017.^[3]

John Burns Johnson had just come out of a nine-hour heart surgery when his surgeon realized that he was missing a needle. Confirming through X-ray that the needle was, in fact, still inside Mr. Johnson, a second operation was conducted. It’s uncertain if the needle couldn’t be found or removed, but nevertheless it remained inside Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson unfortunately passed away a month later due to the complications caused by the needle’s presence in his body. The needle was found and removed during his autopsy.

As shocking as this is, it isn’t the only time this has happened. A woman found out there was an epidural needle left in her back, 14 years after her caesarean surgery back in 2003. The Florida woman had experienced back pain for years but did not realize it was a serious issue until an X-ray showed the epidural needle had broken into three places along her spine. The needle being left behind resulted in nerve damage along her spine and severe scarring.

In case you’re rethinking surgeries, never fret; only ten percent of the items found inside patients end up being needles.

8 Throw In The Towel

A California man went into his doctor’s expecting the worst-case scenario when it came to his diagnosis. Months after an April 2014 abdominal surgery for bladder cancer, he started to experience pain in his bowels, along with a sense of fatigue and an inability to even drive himself to his appointments. Though he had expected a diagnosis that the previously treated cancer had spread, it turned out that the mass which had been causing all his pain was not cancer but, shockingly enough, a towel.

Despite all the surgical instruments being accounted for, the surgical team forgot to keep track of the towels used during surgery. This lead to a misplaced towel ending up in this man’s abdomen, where it caused him a myriad of health problems, not to mention the fear that his cancer was spreading.

Towels being left in patients is not unheard-of; they account for 2.1 percent of items left inside patients during surgery and are undetectable by X-rays. In 1995, an Ohio woman went in for lung surgery and left feeling off. The feeling that something was sitting in her chest stayed until she passed away seven years later. It wasn’t until the autopsy that they found the cause of her pain: a green towel which had been balled up and left in her lung.^[4]

Unfortunately, it was too late to correct the problem, but it did explain the woman’s odd feeling of something moving in her chest despite it nothing being found on X-rays. In the case of the California man, he made a full recovery, and the doctor who performed the surgery was fired. The man sued the hospital to help soak up the damages.

7 No Sponge About It

Bleeding is an unfortunate side effect of surgery, and using sponges is common practice to ensure that the blood doesn’t spread. Leaving the sponge inside the patient, however, is not.

A woman in Japan experienced strange abdominal bloating for three years off and on, with no explanation. After she went to the doctor in hopes of finding the culprit, test results revealed that she not one but two sponges inside her abdomen. The sponges were believed have been left in there during her caesarean six years prior and had attached themselves to the folds connecting her stomach and abdomen as well as her colon.

While surgery provided her much-needed relief, sponges being left inside patients is quite common. Roughly 70 percent of the items found in patients are sponges, and they can do lethal damage. Almost two-thirds of cases where items such as sponges were left inside patients have led to serious infection, injury, and even death.

In 2007, another woman who had a sponge left inside her after a dual bladder and hysterectomy surgery left her feeling ill. Doctors claimed it was a gastrointestinal issue and sent her home, but when the pain began to be accompanied by bleeding, her gynecologist believed it was an ovarian cyst. After her ovaries were removed, the pain continued, and subsequent tests showed that a mass had gathered in her intestines. This mass had been blocked previously by her ovaries, but its identity was obvious now: A sponge had been left behind and had embedded itself into her body. After yet another surgery, and having a large portion of her intestines removed, the sponge was taken out.^[5]

6 Wire Not?

Wires are a common instrument used in surgeries, and depending on the procedure, some have to be kept in the body. However, in the case of a patient in England, a wire was left behind after a routine surgery in August 2018. The wire wasn’t noted as missing until 12 hours later. Luckily, that was still soon enough that the patient suffered no side effects, and a follow-up surgery was scheduled to remove it.

A similar heart-wrenching case happened to Donald Gable in Philadelphia. After his heart surgery, Gable returned home feeling fine. It wasn’t until a follow-up with his doctors that he found out that a 0.6-meter (2 ft) wire had been sitting in his chest for six weeks. Thankfully, the wire was able to be removed, though Mr. Gable was lucky it didn’t pierce a vein, given its precarious positioning.

Wires are often used to aid doctors in guiding instruments to where they need to be. At the Albany Medical Center, two wires were left behind in patients during surgeries. One wire had been used for guiding during a catheter procedure. It wasn’t until the patient had an X-ray done that doctors were able to locate and remove it.

The other incident occurred during a caesarean, during which the wire from a probe was accidentally cut. While the staff were aware the piece of the wire was missing, they didn’t believe it was inside the woman and closed her stitches. Yet again, it wasn’t until she went in for X-rays later that the wire was discovered.^[6]

Though no major damage occurred from these accidents, surgical staff were mostly certainty cutting it too close to the wire.

5 Rock, Paper . . . Scissors?

During childhood, it’s almost too common for parents to have to remind their children to be careful with scissors. For a woman in Australia, the same warning should have been given to her surgeon.

After going in for surgery in 2001 to remove part of her colon, 69-year-old Pat Skinner experienced pain but had been instructed that because of the nature of her surgery, this was to be expected. The pain didn’t stop, and although doctors claimed it was because of the surgery, Mrs. Skinner didn’t think so. This pain wasn’t similar to the uncomfortable feeling doctors warned her about; it was much, much worse. Turns out, Mrs. Skinner was correct.

An X-ray performed by her general practitioner showed that 18-centimeter (7 in) scissors had been left inside her during her surgery. The scissors had become wedged against her tailbone, causing much of her excruciating pain. Unfortunately, by the time the scissors were noticed, tissue had begun to grow over them, and a more extensive surgery had to be done to remove them, resulting in doctors having to remove part of her bowels as well.

Shockingly, this isn’t the only time this has happened. In 2016, a man who had received surgery after an accident 18 years prior began experiencing abdominal pain that didn’t seem to abate despite receiving meds. An X-ray revealed that scissors from the prior operation (pictured above) were still inside the man, identified as “M.V.N.” The scissors, which had rusted due to being left inside his body for so long, had to be removed in a three-hour-long surgery due to the rusted handles being embedded in some of his organs.^[7] Despite the scissors being in M.V.N. for 18 years, he made a full recovery and was sent home within days.

It seems the doctors weren’t playing with scissors; they were playing with their patient’s lives.

4 To Scalpel Or Not To Scalpel?

A surgeon can only be as good as their hands and their tools, which is why it’s surprising when a surgeon loses said tools . . . inside their patient.

This shock came to an Army veteran who underwent surgery in 2013 to remove his prostate after a cancer diagnosis. The surgery went on longer than expected, but Mr. Glenford Turner was not told of any complications or given any indication that there was anything amiss. The pain, however, did not fade, despite the doctor’s reassurances that it would. After four years, Mr. Turner went back in to see his doctor due to unrelenting abdominal pain.

What they found was not a tumor but a foreign object. The scalpel (pictured above) was confirmed to be from his prior surgery and had been left inside him, moving between his bladder and rectal area, causing much of his pain.

Thankfully, the scalpel was able to be removed. This is unlike the case of Victor Hutchison, who was admitted to the hospital after experiencing what he thought were gallbladder issues. Once he was brought in for an X-ray, it was obvious that his gallbladder was not the problem. Months earlier, Mr. Hutchinson had undergone heart bypass surgery in which the scalpel used in the procedure had gone missing. While staff were aware of the missing scalpel, they couldn’t find it and had checked Mr. Hutchinson’s chest using an X-ray, only to come up empty-handed.

Unknown to the surgical staff, the scalpel had left the chest cavity and had lodged itself in Mr. Hutchinson’s abdominal cavity around his spine. Once the scalpel had been found during his subsequent X-ray, the doctors ruled that it was in too precarious of a position to be removed.^[8] Of all the mementos to keep, it’s doubtful Mr. Hutchinson wanted to keep this one from his surgery.

3 You’ve Got This, Clamp

Clamps are very useful during surgery, due to their ability to keep things in place when everything else seems to be moving. They’re so helpful, in fact, that they’re sometimes forgotten about. That is, until the patient is rudely reminded.

Sometimes, even the most routine procedures can lead to harrowing results. After going in for a routine surgery to remove their gastric band in 2011 caused one unnamed patient to end having much more removed. While it seemed that the surgery went well, surgical staff had not realized that a 20-centimeter (8 in) clamp had been left inside the patient. The clamp was detected three days later, and another operation was scheduled to remove it. During this surgery, the patient began to unexpectedly bleed profusely and ultimately had to have their spleen removed.^[9]

2 Retract This!

Retained foreign bodies do occasionally happen, and while objects such as sponges, gauze, and needles are more likely, whole objects such as scissors, wires, and even entire retractors are not unheard-of.

A man in Seattle can testify to this after he continued to have pain following his surgery in 2000. His doctor reassured him that the pain was normal and could last a month after the procedure. However, after setting off metal detectors in an airport, Mr. Donald Church went to his physician to get a second opinion. A CAT scan showed that an entire 33-centimeter-long (13 in) retractor had been left inside him during his surgery to remove a cancerous tumor a month prior. The retractor had been putting pressure on his abdomen and chest, making him feel as if he was slowing dying.

This incident occurred at the University of Washington Medical Center, which admitted in the subsequent lawsuit against them that this is not the first time such a thing had happened. In fact, almost a year prior, a woman had a retractor left inside her during her surgery to remove her cancer. The retractor had remained inside her for almost a month before doctors realized what was causing the pain.

While these incidents were quickly handled, one unnamed patient wasn’t so lucky. His pain lasted off and on for 27 years after his surgery in 1979 to remove polyps in his abdomen. After the operation, the patient felt pain in his side, though doctors attributed it to an abdominal hematoma. However, two decades and some change later, during an X-ray, doctors noticed a large metal mass on the side of his pelvis. The culprit was a 28-centimeter (11 in) surgical retractor which had been overlooked after his first surgical X-rays, 27 years prior.^[10]

Despite the name, it seems that doctors easily forget to retract the objects they use in surgery.

1 Everything But The Kitchen Sink

While many of these cases seem troubling, nothing is as disturbing as a man going in for cancer surgery and leaving with 16 additional problems. Those problems? Surgical items which had been left inside him during the procedure.

Dirk Schroeder’s 2009 surgery was supposed to be an easy procedure, one with minor side effects. What Mr. Schroeder experienced post-surgery was the complete opposite. After his operation, Mr. Schroeder experienced pain, fatigue, discomfort, and illness. Still, his doctors believed it was all expected as part of his recovery. That was until his home health care nurse noticed a gauze pad in a place it shouldn’t be: coming out of Mr. Schroder’s stitches.^[11] Scans found that there were 16 items left in his body during his surgery, including: swabs, a 15-centimeter (6 in) roll of bandage, a compress, needles, and other surgical tools, including part of a surgical mask, which had been impairing his body’s ability to heal correctly.

A total of 1,500 patients a year experience items being left inside them during surgery. They range from gauze to large tools, but rarely are multiple different items left in a patient. For Mr. Schroeder, it cost him two more surgeries to get the 16 objects, either whole or in fragments, out of his body.

How the staff didn’t notice a large number of their tools missing after the surgery is the question both Mr. Schroeder’s family and everyone would like answered.

Music tells a story, no matter the genre. It could be a funny story, a silly story, a weird story, and sometimes a terrifying story. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of songs that tell disturbing stories, including ones of murder, rape, suicide, and stalkers. Others highlight the impact of personal tragedy and trauma, the sharp sting of loss, and the impossibility of moving on.

Related: 10 Deaths That Gave Us Famous Songs

10 “Possession” – Sarah McLachlan

“And I would be the one to hold you down,
Kiss you so hard, I’ll take your breath away,
And after, I’d wipe away the tears,
Just close your eyes dear”

These lyrics are creepy enough without knowing that they were inspired by a real-life stalker who consistently sent demented fan letters to singer Sarah McLachlan for three years. Several of the letters contained thinly veiled threats, including that the stalker “would stop at nothing to achieve their destiny” and that McLachlan had been “betrothed” to him since birth.

The stalker soon realized that his words had been used in McLachlan’s song “Possession,” and he then tried to sue her. However, Uwe Vandrei committed suicide before the case even made it to court.^[1]

9 “The Murder of the Lawson Family” – Carolina Buddies

“They say he killed his wife at first,
and the little ones did cry
Please papa, papa, won’t you spare our lives?
For it is so hard to die”

Shortly before Christmas Day in 1929, 43-year-old Charlie Lawson took his wife and their seven children into town to buy new clothes. While they were there, Lawson also insisted that they have a family portrait taken. The family returned to their home in Germanton, North Carolina, feeling happy and excited for Christmas to arrive. Little did they know that it would be their last day.

On December 25th, Lawson shot both his teenage daughters after lying in wait for them at the family’s tobacco barn. To ensure they were dead, he hit both of them with the shotgun he’d used on them just minutes before.

He then returned to the house, shot his wife, who had been standing on the front porch, then took out the rest of the children in the house, including his four-month-old Mary Lou. Sixteen-year-old Arthur was the only survivor, as he was sent on an errand by Lawson right before he committed the crimes. Lawson ran into the surrounding woods and killed himself.

In 1930, the music group Carolina Buddies released “The Murder of the Lawson Family.” The folksy music accompanying the disturbing lyrics makes for an uncomfortable listening experience. It has since been recorded by several artists, including The Stanley Brothers and Doc Watson.^[2]

8 “Nebraska” – Bruce Springsteen

“I saw her standing on her front lawn,
just twirling her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir,
and ten innocent people died”

These words are sung by Bruce Springsteen from the perspective of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather. When Starkweather met 14-year-old Caril Ann Fugate, he had already killed a man. Together Starkweather and Fugate killed another ten people in Nebraska over an eight-day period in 1958.

Springsteen saw the 1973 movie Badlands on TV and was inspired by the girl in the film who stands on the front lawn twirling her baton. The rest of the inspiration for the song came after Springsteen researched the murders perpetrated by Starkweather and Fugate. The song was titled “Nebraska” and included on Springsteen’s 1982 album, also called Nebraska.^[3]

7 “Knoxville Girl” – The Louvin Brothers

“I met a little girl in Knoxville, a town we all know well
And every Sunday evening, out in her home, I’d dwell
We went to take an evening walk about a mile from town
I picked a stick up off the ground and knocked that fair girl down”

The Louvin Brothers recorded a cover of “Knoxville Girl” in 1956, and it is reminiscent of the Carolina Buddies’ murder ballad. If you don’t really listen to the lyrics, it sounds like any other ’50s song. However, when you’re tuned into what’s being sung, you realize just how disturbing the lyrics really are.

“Knoxville Girl” was derived from the Irish ballad “The Wexford Girl” or “The Oxford Girl” and tells the story of a man named Willie who meets and starts dating a girl in Knoxville, Tennessee. During a romantic stroll, Willie picks up a stick and beats the girl until the ground below is soaked with her blood. He then proceeds to drag her lifeless body around by the hair before disposing of it in a nearby river.^[4]

6 “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor” – Eels

“Laying on the bathroom floor
Kitty licks my cheek once more
And I
I could try
But waking up is harder when you wanna die”

“Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor” by American rock band Eels is only two and a half minutes long but conveys absolute despair, terror, and heartbreak in a few lines. The founder of the band, singer/songwriter Mark Oliver Everett wrote the lyrics after his sister’s first suicide attempt.

Her boyfriend called Everett, and he rushed over to their house, where he found Elizabeth unconscious on the bathroom floor. She was revived at the hospital. Elizabeth suffered from severe depression and tried many times to end her own life after the first attempt. She finally succeeded in 1996 while Everett was on tour.^[5]

Everett was also the one to discover his father’s lifeless body after the latter suffered a heart attack. His mother died of cancer in 1998, and he lost a flight attendant cousin during the 9/11 attacks.

5 “Kim” – Eminem

“Sit up front! (We can’t just leave Hailie alone! What if she wakes up?)
We’ll be right back; well, I will: you’ll be in the trunk!”

These lines are a disturbing part of the 6-minute rant released by Eminem in 2000. It starts out with Eminem rapping about his daughter and then segueing into spewing hate at his then-wife Kim. Eminem goes through several mood swings throughout the song and almost becomes hysterical at one point. Eminem, Kim, and Hailey are in a car as the rapper continues to hurl profanities at his wife. He even replies to his own rantings as Kim, impersonating her voice. When they reach a secluded field, Eminem strangles Kim and dumps her body in the trunk of the car.

While this is obviously not what happened in real life, it highlights the tension between Marshall Mathers and his wife. It also highlights the fact that many variants of this type of situation occur daily around the world, too often with tragic consequences.^[6]

4 “Daddy” – Korn

“Mother, please forgive me
I just had to get out all my pain and suffering
Now that I am done
Remember I will always love you
I’m your son”

This is the first verse of the heartbreakingly terrifying song, “Daddy,” by American nu metal band Korn. Lead singer Jonathan Davis apparently wrote the lyrics about a situation involving a family friend in which a child was molested, and no one believed him.

Because of the nuances of the lyrics, most fans of the band believed that Davis had written the song because his own father had sexually abused him, and his mother refused to believe it. There is still contention around the song because, during an early interview, Davis commented that he’d been abused by an unnamed person, and both his parents refused to believe him when he told them about it. In a YouTube video, he said that the abuser was his babysitter. The babysitter has since died.^[7]

3 “Youth of the Nation” – P.O.D.

“Last day of the rest of my life
I wish I would’ve known
‘Cause I didn’t kiss my mama goodbye”

On March 5, 2001, American Christian metal band P.O.D. was on their way to a recording session in California when they got stuck in a traffic jam. They later learned that the traffic jam was caused by a shooting incident at Santana High School during which 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams shot dead two students and wounded another thirteen.”

When they finally started their recording session, the song “Youth of the Nation” was born. The song tells the story of three teenagers who each fall into tragedy. The 1999 Columbine school shooting also serves as inspiration for some of the lyrics.^[8]

2 “Suffer Little Children” – The Smiths

“Over the moor, take me to the moor
Dig a shallow grave
And I’ll lay me down”

English singer/songwriter Morrissey was only a few years younger than the victims of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady at the time they were killed. When he and Johnny Marr formed The Smiths in 1982, “Suffer Little Children” was one of the first songs they wrote together. It was released in 1984 and names three of the five children murdered by Hindley and Brady.

The song is truly haunting but did not come without controversy. It was reported that some of the victims’ families took exception to the children being named in the song, while some fans were upset at the sleeve photo of the single, which to them was meant to resemble Myra Hindley. Morrissey later said that the song was meant as a tribute to the victims and that the title was taken from the Book of Matthew 19:14.^[9]

1 “Hero of War” – Rise Against

“He said, Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
Just carry this gun, you’ll even get paid,
I said that sounds pretty good.”

Vocalist Tim McIlrath wrote both the music and lyrics for “Hero of War” for punk rock band Rise Against. The song starts with an army recruiter convincing the protagonist to enlist. The recruiter does this by promising that the young man will see the world and have many adventures.

The young soldier’s illusions are soon shattered, and when he kills a woman carrying a white flag, he becomes utterly disgusted with patriotism. McIlrath stated that the lyrics of the song were inspired by troops around the world who remain deployed to protect their countries. He also said that the message of the song must always be that there is not enough assistance for soldiers who come back from combat in a mentally and physically broken state.^[10]

When the terms “troubling social trends” and “U.S. colleges” are used in tandem, the first things that come to mind are young-adult vices like binge drinking, fraternity hazing, and a heaping dose of HPV.

But alas, other worrisome habits have crept into many American colleges, and the consequences could be far more serious than a hangover, a few bruises, or an itching sensation down under. Welcome to higher learning in the era of all-things politically correct.

Related: 10 Most Absurd Things Banned On Politically Correct College Campuses

10 Self-Segregation

In a giant, progressive leap either forward or backward, Western Washington University recently debuted Black-only housing. Located about 90 miles south of Seattle, the small liberal arts school has designated the fourth floor of one of its largest dormitories for something called its “Black Affinity Program.”

Per the program’s website, the goal is to “explore and celebrate the diversity of Black and African American people and culture, with historical and contemporary context.” Oddly, the website also states that “Black Affinity Housing residents represent all diverse identities”—even though, by definition, they don’t. It intends to foster “a sense of belonging for all residents by creating a safe environment for open, honest, and sometimes challenging dialogue.” Exactly how “safe environments” invite “challenging dialogue” is up for debate.

Instances of self-segregation are becoming increasingly common at American colleges. The National Association of Scholars recently launched an initiative called “Separate But Equal, Again: Neo-Segregation in American Higher Education.”. Of the 173 universities it surveyed, 42% offer segregated residences, 46% offer segregated orientation programs, and a whopping 72% host segregated graduation ceremonies.

Granted, many colleges have historically been dominated by white students (and, more recently, Asian-Americans), leaving some Black students struggling to connect to their own culture at a pivotal time of self-exploration. Still, many student and education advocacy groups have disparaged the uptick in self-segregation, wondering aloud if it’s something that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have endorsed.^[1]

9 Anti-Meritocracy

In October 2021, Dorian Abbott, Associate Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago, was disinvited by MIT for a guest lecture he’d been scheduled to give. He must have been some whack-job arguing that the Earth was flat or that climate change doesn’t exist, right?

Wrong. The lecture was called “Climate and the Potential for Life on Other Planets,” a dissertation exploring how scientists factor in a planet’s likely climate when considering its potential for hosting organic life. It also details how astronomical observations indicate the possibility of new climatic regimes not found on modern Earth. Again, not exactly fodder for widespread protest.

Still, he must have done something terribly offensive outside the classroom for a science-driven institution like MIT to pull the plug. Maybe he’s a white supremacist? A serial sexual harasser? Rabidly anti-LGBTQ, perhaps?

Nope. Abbott’s horrific offense stemmed from an opinion piece he wrote for the non-partisan magazine Newsweek, in which he dared criticize current diversity, equity, and inclusion higher-education standards. In short, Abbott argues that these standards are anti-meritocracy. He suggests a new framework called “Merit, Fairness, and Equality” where students would be “treated as individuals” and “evaluated through rigorous and unbiased” processes based on qualifications. How unforgivable of him.

Fortunately for both Abbott and sanity, Princeton University subsequently invited him to give his lecture, which was so well-received that it required a cyber-conference expansion after its Zoom quota was reached.^[2]

8 Treating Moderates Like Radicals

Conservative speakers being disallowed or disinvited at American colleges is nothing new. Here’s a list dating back two decades, courtesy of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Fortunately, the more overt attempts to suppress speech on campuses have diminished in recent years; in 2019, Commentary Magazine optimistically noted that, concerning free speech, things were “looking up.” And according to FIRE, university disinvitations peaked in 2016 and have slowly declined since.

In their stead, however, has been more insidious forms of gatekeeping—ones standing on the shoulders of decades of anti-conservative bias to cloak further favoritism in the veil of democracy. In January 2021, the National Review published a piece by the president of the right-leaning party of Princeton University’s bipartisan American Whig-Cliosophic Society, the nation’s oldest collegiate literary, political, and debate organization. The centuries-old institution foments the free exchange of ideas—the essence of higher learning.

Guest lecture invitations are decided by the Speakers Council via vote. Per the piece’s author, the left-leaning party had their speakers list rubberstamped with ease. Meanwhile, his party’s speaker list had two rejections deemed too controversial.

Among them—and this is truly nuts—was George Will, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Washington Post columnist. He is among the most respected, reasonable journalists on either side of the political aisle—oh, and he’s also a Princeton ALUMNUS.^[3]

When an eloquent moderate conservative alumnus is treated as an ideological threat, there’s a big, big problem.

7 Banning Conservative Student Organizations

Perhaps even more worrisome than the disallowance of conservative guest speakers is the banning of conservative organizations comprised of paying customers: namely, students.

In 2017, the student senate at California’s Santa Clara University voted to reject the formation of a chapter of Turning Point USA, a conservative organization whose stated mission is to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.” So basically, mainstream American conservatism.

The final tally was 10 votes in favor, 16 against. According to student senate chair Neil Datar, “the final decision was a product of a rigorous, fair, and democratic process”—a reminder that undemocratic notions can be enabled by democracy itself. One senator who voted in favor of Turning Point USA, Ahmer Israr, echoed this sentiment: “It is a shame that 16 of my peers saw it fit to trample upon the rights of an intellectual minority group on campus by engaging in a tyranny of the majority.”

During deliberations, Israr and fellow senator David Warne emphasized the importance of intellectual freedom and diversity. Instead, an organization espousing views typical of one of the country’s two mainstream political parties was treated like an existential threat to a liberal-majority student body. One dissenter ascribed this to a “false sense of danger…that anyone who is vaguely conservative is a Nazi or a white supremacist.”^[4]

6 Illiberal Liberalism

It isn’t just conservative voices being silenced at American colleges. Similar treatment extends to many left-leaning educators deemed not sufficiently progressive. Such was the case with tenured Portland State University professor Peter Boghossian—who describes himself as a classical liberal who’s never voted for a Republican candidate.

As a philosophy professor, Boghossian exposed his students to a broad range of viewpoints. He regularly invited speakers on various topics—even if he didn’t share their opinions. “I invited those speakers not because I agreed with their worldviews,” he writes, “but primarily because I didn’t. From those messy and difficult conversations, I’ve seen the best of what our students can achieve: questioning beliefs while respecting believers, staying even-tempered in challenging circumstances, and even changing their minds.”

That sounds…well, like a philosophy professor doing his job.

Unfortunately, the persistent pushback he received is as unsurprising as it is unsettling. University officials, he continues, have “transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division. Students at Portland State are not being taught to think. Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues.”

Boghossian’s resignation letter reads like everything wrong with progressive collegiate groupthink. Not coincidentally, it was posted to the Substack page of Bari Weiss, a left-leaning opinion writer who claims she was drummed out of her role at The New York Times because she wasn’t progressive enough.^[5]

5 Abdicating Their Primary Purpose: Education

The Boghossian resignation letter (see previous entry) lays out, in eloquent fashion, personal experiences with broader trends on campuses across the U.S. Among these failures is what Borgossian sees as a diminished dedication to exposing students to new or unconventional ideas.

Per Boghossian: “Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions.” Such actions, he points out, not only prevent opposing ideas from entering healthy academic dialogue but also train differently opinioned students to keep mum. “This,” he continues, “has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly.”

The overarching theme was clear: conform, or else. Boghossian: “Questions from faculty at diversity trainings that challenged approved narratives were instantly dismissed. Those who asked for evidence to justify new institutional policies were accused of microaggressions. And professors were accused of bigotry for assigning canonical texts written by philosophers who happened to have been European and male.”

Or fired for showing critically-acclaimed films, for that matter.

This environment of virtue signaling, PC thought policing, and engagement hesitation (for fear of being shunned or canceled) sounds strikingly familiar. Specifically, it sounds like social media, only with IRL replacing URLs.

Worse, in not only allowing but encouraging this tepid tabooism, colleges are teaching those paying to be educated to limit their thoughts to rigidly accepted, strictly monitored limits. This groupthink, stay-inside-the-box mentality seems destined to churn out far more sheep than shepherds.^[6]

4 Deciding What’s Funny (and What Isn’t)

When I think “great sense of humor,” I think Woke college students. Not.

The pervasiveness of political correctness at American colleges has made them a no-go for an ever-growing list of comedians who have this crazy idea in their heads that stand-up comedy should be, well, funny. And irreverent.

This is not, let’s be clear, limited to conservative comedians. We’re not talking Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour or even the rabidly anti-liberal Dennis Miller. Ultra-liberal Bill Maher has largely steered clear of campuses since 2014 when University of California Berkeley activists opposed his speaking at winter commencement because of past remarks criticizing Muslims during a stand-up act.

We’re not even talking about the most outlandish comedians. Jerry Seinfeld—who doesn’t do political material and rarely even swears—avoids playing colleges due to the hypersensitivity of students. “When you think about Jerry Seinfeld not being willing to do college campuses because of political correctness,” said former Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman, “I think you got a real problem.”

And edgier comics? Forget it. Louis C.K., Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson—all sacrifice college gigs for their insistence that comedy presses buttons and pushes boundaries. Looking back, many of the best stand-up acts ever—Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce—likely would have had similar misgivings.^[7]

3 Denying Due Process

The relatively newfound right of women subjected to sexual harassment, assault, or rape to have their voices heard is long overdue. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between empowering women and leaving men completely defenseless—and many colleges cross that line.

Writing for the left-leaning magazine The Atlantic, Emily Yoffe penned a 2017 article discussing the loss of due process for men accused of inappropriate sexual conduct. “At many schools,” she writes, “the rules intended to protect victims of sexual assault mean students have lost their right to due process—and an accusation of wrongdoing can derail a person’s entire college education.”

This phenomenon, Yoffe explains, isn’t just straightforward accusations of “he forced himself on me.” Rather, these potentially life-ruining accusations often result from mutual encounters that ended with one party feeling slightly—and subjectively—uncomfortable.

Yoffe describes an incident where a woman performed oral sex on a man, who then cajoled her into sticking around a few minutes longer with a playful grab and kissing. She was fully clothed the whole time. Per her formal written accusation, it was only later that she “realized I’d been sexually assaulted.”

This led to cascading events that, ultimately, saw the man suspended, banned from campus housing, and suffering stress-related health problems so severe he needed to drop two classes. For Yoffe, the incident showcases how “many remedies that have been pushed on campus are unjust to men, and ultimately undermine the legitimacy of the fight against sexual violence.”^[8]

2 A Growing Gender Imbalance

The days of women playing catch-up in higher education are over—and then some. In fact, Googling the term “why aren’t men” and glancing at the autocomplete options, the very first one is “going to college.”

For the 2021-22 academic year, nearly 60% of college students are women—a gap that has been gradually widening for decades. This represents millions of fewer men at both two- and four-year colleges. (A half-century ago, those figures were almost exactly the opposite.) The trend seems to be accelerating: Over the past five years, overall U.S. college enrollment has declined by about one million students, with men accounting for more than 70% of this drop-off.

No consensus exists as to why men are now a marked minority at American colleges. Some experts point out that, in elementary and high schools, boys are more likely to be held back, drop out, or have trouble learning to read. Some economists suggest that men are likelier to feel the lure of a job immediately following high school, especially since the types of decent-paying jobs that don’t require college degrees—construction, law enforcement, etc.—skew male.

Regardless of the reason, there will likely be consequences. College graduates earn, on average, 56% more than high school graduates—a difference that amounts to over a million dollars of lifetime earnings. College grads are also far less likely to lose jobs during economic downturns and, socially, are generally happier, healthier, and enjoy more successful marriages.^[9]

1 Prompting a “Radical Centrist” Education Backlash

Though this final entry may eventually be seen as a positive trend, the fact that it’s even necessary is troubling. Quite simply, enough moderates on both sides of the ideological spectrum have had enough of this nonsense that they’ve gone ahead and founded their own college.

In early November 2021, news broke that several current and former Harvard University professors are helping establish the University of Austin, a Texas-based liberal arts school created to counter what its founders see as a culture of censorship in higher education.

In addition to politically centrist former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss—whose Substack page published the resignation letter referenced in two entries above—U of A founders include former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers, Kennedy School professor Arthur C. Brooks, Psychology professor Steven A. Pinker, and Brown University economics professor Glenn C. Loury.

In an interview, Pinker said that “too many of the country’s universities are stuck in the same rut, and that rut includes exorbitant tuition, a mushrooming bureaucracy, a bizarre set of admissions criteria, and increasing political homogeneity, including repression of speech and ideas.”

Another co-founder, former St. John’s University president Panayiotis Kanelos, recalled Harvard’s motto—Veritas—before wondering aloud if “in these top schools, and in so many others, can we actually claim that the pursuit of truth—once the central purpose of a university—remains the highest virtue?”^[10]