Songs and other types of media that take on the circumcision debate in some way or another.

Q&A

I recently have been wondering about songs that were written about circumcision. For sure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_of_Love_and_Hate

Songs of Love and Hate - Leonard Cohen

This album touches on the subject, throughout.Avalanche

I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soul
When I am not this hunchback that you see
I sleep beneath the golden hill
You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn, learn to serve me well

You strike my side by accident
As you go down for your gold
The cripple here that you clothe and feed
Is neither starved nor cold
He does not ask for your company
Not at the center, the center of the world

When I am on a pedestal
You did not raise me there
Your laws do not compel me
To kneel grotesque and bare
I myself am the pedestal
For this ugly hump at which you stare

You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn what makes me kind
The crumbs of love that you offer me
They're the crumbs I've left behind
Your pain is no credential here
It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound

I have begun to long for you
I who have no greed
I have begun to ask for you
I who have no need
You say you've gone away from me
But I can feel you when you breathe

Do not dress in those rags for me
I know you are not poor
And don't love me quite so fiercely now
When you know that you are not sure
It is your turn, beloved
It is your flesh that I wear

Last Year's Man

The rain falls down on last year's man
And the corners of the blueprint are ruined since they rolled
And the skylight is like skin for a drum I'll never mend
And all the rain falls down amen on the works of last year's man

[Verse 2]
I met a lady, she was playing with her soldiers in the dark
And though I wear a uniform, I was not born to fight
All these wounded boys you lie beside, goodnight, my friends, goodnight

[Verse 3]
I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived

[Verse 4]
Some women wait for Jesus, and some women wait for Cain
And I take the one who finds me back to where it all began
And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin
That the wilderness is gathering all its children back again

(I just stumbled upon it by accident. Although I was familiar with Leonard Cohen, I was mostly naive about his music up until now.)

I also remember this https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0567987/

ER S4.E3 Friendly Fire

  • Episode aired Oct 9, 1997

probably being the first time I saw it being talked about on TV.

Also remember this episode on Penn and Tellers BS

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0672524/?ref_=ttep_ep_1

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! S3.E1Circumcision

  • Episode aired Apr 25, 2005

Posted Nov 5, 2025, 11:48 PM UTC

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