Heavy metal Goddess Lita Ford just released a heart wrenching new video for “Mother,” off her latest album, “Living Like A Runaway.” Now, before I begin, let me just take a second here to…
Oh geez, okay, okay, okay, pull yourself together, SpaceJam, come on now…
*Deep breath* okay, I’m good. Oh my GOD that was intense. “Mother” is based of Lita Ford’s experience with parental alienation, something she dealt with firsthand when she went through her divorce from now ex-husband Jim Gillette. Ford’s has two sons, James (16,) and Rocco 12,) who she has not seen since the divorce, and has told Decibel:
“My kids are with their dad. He brainwashed them and took them from me, telling them, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go with Mommy. Mommy’s bad.’ He put the entire weight of the divorce on my kids, which is the worst thing any parent could do to their child. It’s like losing your child to some sort of freak, like in the mall, or somebody hanging out in bushes or at a bus stop. You hear all these horror stories. Only, I know where they are – that’s the only difference.”
She hopes the track and video will reach her sons, but says:
“He won’t let them hear it. He won’t let them have anything to do with me. He won’t let them look at any photographs. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life. I wrote this song to tell them how much I love them, that I didn’t mean for this to happen and it’s not my fault. I didn’t do this to them – although they think I did.”
The video, directed by former Runaways bandmate Victory Tischler-Blue,who Ford has said:
“Vicki and I have been buddies since The Runaways. She was the second main bass player to come into The Runaways. Vicki and I, we’ve always been tight. She’s extremely creative in her way of visual effects, photography and cinematic scenes, and I’m creative musically. We put our creativity together, and we came up with this beautiful piece of footage.”
“Mother” is a mixture of old home videos of Ford’s children and footage of the talented guitarist in the desert attempting to deal with her pain. She hopes to not only reach her boys with the video, but to address the reality that is parental alienation, explaining that it is:
“a deep, confusing issue for everybody — the parents, the children. It’s horrific. And there’s never really any closure, unlike a death. It’s just hanging.”
She hopes that the video will come as a comfort to others struggling, saying that:
“it will give them belief and faith and strength to get through whatever it is that they have to go through in order to have their children safe and sane.”
Here’s to hoping that Ford gets the result she’s hoping for and is reunited with her sons. We love you Lita, hang in there!
