Looking Through Jerry Orbach’s Eyes

The organ donations I can’t stop thinking about

Image via NBC

Before murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977, he made the choice to become an organ donor, offering up his eyes, kidneys, pituitary glands, and liver. His whole execution captured the public imagination — he was the first person killed after the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The last words he said before he died, “Let’s do it,” inspired Nike’s iconic slogan. But his eye donation was maybe the most captivating part of all. The Adverts, a British punk band, released “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” in 1978, which imagines the recipient of Gilmore’s donation waking up in the hospital and becoming a murderer. It goes:

I’m lying in a hospital,

I’m pinned against the bed.

A stethoscope upon my heart,

A hand against my head.

They’re peeling off the bandages.

I’m wincing in the light.

The nurse is looking anxious,

And she’s quivering in fright

I’m looking through Gary Gilmore’s eyes.

There’s a real intimacy to organ donation — you’re putting a vital part of yourself into somebody else — and there’s arguably no body part more…