Your favorite anti-war lyric?

[unpossibles]

there are so many I love. This was inspired by another thread where someone mentioned a lack of good anti-war music in the 80's, although most of the bands I like from that era were at least somewhat to very political in nature.

Anyway, one of my all-time favorite anti-war songs would be "Shipbuilding" by Elvis Costello - it literally gives me chills and is still (sadly) appropriate for the times.

Is it worth it
A new winter coat and shoes for the wife
And a bicycle on the boys birthday

Its just a rumour that was spread around town
By the women and children
Soon well be shipbuilding

Well I ask you
The boy said dad they're going to take me to task
But I'll be back by christmas

Its just a rumour that was spread around town
Somebody said that someone got filled in
For saying that people get killed in
The result of this shipbuilding

With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls

Its just a rumour that was spread around town
A telegram or a picture postcard
Within weeks theyll be re-opening the shipyards
And notifying the next of kin

Once again
Its all were skilled in
We will be shipbuilding
With all the will in the world
Diving for dear life
When we could be diving for pearls




If you have not heard it, there is a clip here:
http://www.pandora.com/music/song/7232f9756885c516

[Heidi]

1. Masters of War, Bob Dylan

Video of Dylan performing "Masters of War" with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gw3Q8JTjvU&search=%22Masters%20of%20War%22
Video of Pearl Jam performing "Masters of War" on Letterman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG443N7lo4Q&search=%22Masters%20of%20War%22

Masters of War
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
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

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

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

[SteppingRazor]

4. Seconded...

Masters of War is the most scathing, pointed indictment of chickenhawk politicians and war-profiteering businessmen I've ever heard.

On edit: especially that second-to-last verse:
"Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul"

Yikes.

[Heidi]

6. That verse gives me chills.

I'm the 43-year-old daughter of a Vietnam vet. My dad introduced me to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Pete Seeger, Woody and many, many others. I am grateful.

Did you happen to see the poem that RetroLounge posted the other day, by Vietnam Veterans of America Poet Laureate Steve Mason? A heartbreaker.

[otherlander]

2. Not sure if the song is exactly anti-war...

but Industrial Disease by Dire Straits, especially the end of the song:
I go down to speakers corner Im thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say theyre jesus one of them must be wrong
Theres a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease
Theyre pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you rule brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in espana and sunday striptease
Meanwhile the first jesus says Id cure it soon
Abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons
The other ones on a hunger strike hes dying by degrees
How come jesus gets industrial disease

Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ-tpPmju5s&search=industrial%20disease

[unpossibles]

5. I think the Dire Straits count for sure

they have a lot of anti-war and anti-establishment songs. I'm a huge fan of a lot of their stuff, and "Ride Across The River" and "Brothers in Arms" come to mind also.

[GumboYaYa]

3. It amazes me how the Dead Kennedys' message is still so

contemporary. From Bleed for Me:

You’ve been hanging ’round
With an enemy of the state
Come with me to the building
That no-one stops to watch

Chorus
C’mon bleed
C’mon bleed
C’mon bleed
Bleed for me

We’ll strap you to a pipe
Electrodes on your balls
C’mon scream
C’mon writhe
Face down in a pool of piss

Chorus

In the name of world peace
In the name of world profits
America pumps up our secret police
America wants fuel
To get it, it needs puppets
So what’s ten million dead?
If it’s keeping out the russians

We’re well trained by the cia
With yankee tax money in ft. bragg
The peace corps builds us labor camps
When they think they’re building schools

Ha ha

When cowboy ronnie comes to town
Forks out his tongue at human rights
Sit down, enjoy our ethnic meal
Dine on some charbroiled nuns
Try a medal on
Smile at the mirror as the cameras click
And make big business happy¡º

Anytime
Anywhere
Maybe you’ll just disappear

Chorus

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. Slayer- "Mandatory Suicide"

Lyrics by Tom Araya


Murder at your every foot step.
A child's toy sudden death.
Sniper blazes you thru your knees
Falling down can you feel the heat,
Burn!

Ambushed by the spray of lead
Count the bullet holes in your head.
Offspring sent out to cry,
Living mandatory suicide.
Suicide.

Holes burn deep in your chest,
Raped by machine gun fire.
Screaming soul sent out to die,
Living mandatory suicide.
Suicide.


Lying, dying, screaming in pain.
Begging, pleading, bullets drop like rain.
Mines explode, pain sheers through your brain,
Radical amputation, this is insane.

Fly swatter stakes drive through your chest.
Spikes impale you as you're forced off the crest.
Soldier of misfortune
Hunting with bated breath.

A vile smell, like tasting death.
Dead bodies, dying and wounded
Litter the city streets
Shattered glass, bits of clothing and human deceit.
Dying terror,
Blood's cheap, it's everywhere.
Mandatory suicide, massacre on the front line.

[tonkatoy57]

8. Iris DeMent

There's a wall in Washington
and it's made of cold black granite
They say 60,000 names are etched there in it
in that wall in Washington

A father, he traveled from far away
to walk the path 'til he finds that name
He reaches his hand up and traces each letter
The tears they fall as his memories gather
for the boy who filled his heart with pride
is now but a name that's been etched
in the side of this wall in Washington

A mother she traveled from far away
to walk the path 'til she finds that name
She reaches her hand up and traces each letter
The tears they fall as her memories gather
She feels the baby at her breast
but her heart it breaks because all that is left
is this wall in Washington

A boy, he traveled from far away
to walk the path 'til he finds that name
He reaches his hand up and traces each letter
He stares at the name of his unknown father
His heart is young and it's filled with pain
in anger he cries out

"Who is to blame for this wall in Washington
that's made of cold black granite?
Why is my father's name etched here in it
in this wall in Washington?"

[Heidi]

11. I love Iris DeMent,

and her husband, Greg Brown, is another of my favorite songwriters. :thumbsup:

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dukkha]

9. Roger Waters - The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

You have a natural tendency
To squeeze off a shot
You're good fun at parties
You wear the right masks
You're old but you still
Like a laugh in the locker room
You can't abide change
And you're home on the range
You opened the suitcase
Behind the old workings
To show off the magnum
You deafened the canyon
A comfort a friend
Only upstaged in the end
By the Uzi machine gun
Does the recoil remind you
Remind you of sex
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer, who you gonna kill next

I looked over Jordan and what did I see
Saw a U.S. Marine in a pile of debris
I swam in your pools
And lay under your palm trees
I looked in the eyes of the Indian
Who lay on the Federal Building steps
And through the range finder over the hill
I saw the front line boys popping their pills
Sick of the mess they find on their desert stage
And the bravery of being out of range
Yeah the question is vexed
Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next

Hey bartender, over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir, turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great for righting wrongs
You hit the target, win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gain terrain
With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range

[atomic-fly]

10. North Sea Bubble by Billy Bragg

North Sea Bubble


I went out drinking with Thomas Paine
He said that all revolutions are not the same
They are as different as the cultures
That give them birth
For no one idea
Can solve every problem on Earth

So don't expect it all to happen
In some prophesied political fashion
For people are different
And so are nations
You can borrow ideas
But you can't borrow situations

In Leningrad the people say
Perestroika can be explained this way
The people who told us
That two and two is ten
Are now trying to tell us
That two and two is five

We're living in a North Sea Bubble
We're trying to spend our way out of trouble

You keep buying these things but you don't need them
But as long as you're comfortable it feels like freedom

My American friends don't know what to do
But they'll wait a long time for a Beverley Hills coup

War! What is it good for
It's good for business

[BigMcLargehuge]

13. Tilt - Dear Wife

"Dear Wife"

No my darling have no fear
I'll see you by and by
I trust in my commander
And my brothers in arms
The chaplain reassures us
That God is on our side
And I will write you every day
I will keep you informed

Dear Wife
I can feel you arms about my neck
Life like
The image of you crying at the gate
Dear Wife
Your photo is a shield over my heart
My Life
Depends on the memory of your face

We landed on the shore today
No enemy in sight
We are strong and confident
Our training is complete
We set up camp
And cleaned our guns
And sang away the night
And yours by far the lovliest
Of all the pictures seen

I can barely write today
How things have gone awry
A man who was a friend to me
Is dead and many more
I had to do a dreadful thing
To make it back alive
Why am I the only one
To send back into war?

So tell me dear
The color of your eyes
I cannot remember
The glimmer of your hair
You were a guiding light
Emblazoned on my mind
But death had led me far away
And I don't seem to care

Dear God I am betrayed today
My brothers are insane
Our leaders have abandoned us
And turned us loose to kill
They behave like animals
And I behave the same
Why should I try to survive
When I don't have the will?

Dear Wife
The tempo of my death is beating down
Why Hide?
Relief awaits me, I cannot escape
Dear Wife
Your photo is a dead thing to me now
My Life
Is wasted like the memory of your face

[Va Lefty]

14. Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation by Tom Paxton

I got a letter from LBJ
It said this is your lucky day.
It's time to put your khaki trousers on.
Though it may seem very queer
We've got no jobs to give you here
So we are sending you to Vietnam.

(Chorus)
Lyndon Johnson told the nation,
"Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn't really war,
We're sending fifty thousand more
To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese.

I jumped off the old troop ship,
And sank in the mud up to my hips.
I cussed until the captain called me down.
Never mind how hard it's raining,
Think of all the ground we're gaining,
Just don't take one step outside of town.

(Chorus)

Every night the local gentry,
Sneak out past the sleeping sentry.
They go to join the old VC.
In their nightly little dramas,
They put on their black pajamas,
And come lobbing mortar shells at me.

(Chorus)

We go round in helicopters,
Like a bunch of big grasshoppers,
Searching for the Viet Cong in vain.
They left a note that they had gone,
They had to get down to Saigon,
Their government positions to maintain.

(Chorus)

Well her I sit in this rice paddy,
Wondering about Big Daddy,
And I know that Lyndon loves me so.
Yet how sadly I remember
Way back yonder in November,
When he said I'd never have to go.

(Chorus)

[kwolf68]

15. Heaven Is Falling

One of Bad Religion's simpler songs, but really a good lyric

as I walk beneath the valley,
I shall fear no evil,
for thanks to King George and his rainbow cabinet,
today murder is legal

God I know that it's wrong,
to kill my brother for what he hasn't done,
and as the planes blacken the sky,
it sounds like heaven is falling,
it sounds like heaven is falling,
you promised me a new day a dawning
I see a thousand points of light,
like so many points of hatred, shame and horror

God I want to be a man,
but I don't want to die with a rifle in my hand,
and as the planes blacken the sky,
it sounds like heaven is falling,
it sounds like heaven is falling,
you promised me a new day a dawning
well nothing here looks new to me,
but a score of mothers 'sons,
caught 'tween the devil and the deep blue sea



And a more recent song by my favorite band, a song that was a direct rebuttal to the bush administration

"Let Them Eat War"

There's a prophet on a mountain and he's making up dinner
With long division and writing crop
Anybody can feel like a winner
When it's served up piping hot

But the people aren't looking for a handout
They're America's working corps
Can this be what they voted for?

Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war

There's an urgent need to feed
Declining pride

From the force to the union shops
The war economy is making new jobs
But the people who benefit most
Are breaking bread with their benevolent hosts

Who never stole from the rich to give to the poor
All they ever gave to them was a war
And a foreign enemy to deplore

Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war

There's an urgent need to feed
Declining pride

We've got to kill 'em and eat 'em
Before they reach for their checks
Squeeze some blue collars
Let them bleed from their necks
Seize a few dollars from the people who sweat
Cause it's freedom or death and they won't question it
At a job site the boss is god like
Conditioned workhorses park at a stoplight
Seasoned vets with their feet in nets
A stones throw away from a rock fight
But not tonight, feed ‘em death

Here comes another ration (feed them death)
Cause they're the finest in the nation (feed them death)
When there's nothing left to feed them
When it's freedom or it's death

Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor
Let them eat war

There's an urgent need to feed

[ghostsofgiants]

20. Good choices.

I'm not much of an Ataris fan, but The Ataris did a really good cover of "Heaven Is Falling" for the Rock Against Bush compilation a couple years back.

[Heidi]

16. Sunday kick: "The Grave," Don McLean

The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.

When the wars of our nation did beckon,
A man barely twenty did answer the calling.
Proud of the trust that he placed in our nation,
He’s gone,
But eternity knows him, and it knows what we’ve done.

And the rain fell like pearls on the leaves of the flowers
Leaving brown, muddy clay where the earth had been dry.
And deep in the trench he waited for hours,
As he held to his rifle and prayed not to die.

But the silence of night was shattered by fire
As guns and grenades blasted sharp through the air.
And one after another his comrades were slaughtered.
In morgue of marines, alone standing there.

He crouched ever lower, ever lower with fear.
"they can’t let me die! the can’t let me die here!
I’ll cover myself with the mud and the earth.
I’ll cover myself! I know I’m not brave!
The earth! the earth! the earth is my grave."

The grave that they dug him had flowers
Gathered from the hillsides in bright summer colors,
And the brown earth bleached white at the edge of his gravestone.
He’s gone.

[wildhorses]

17. i say ....keep it simple...War~Edwin Starr

what is good for????
absolutely nothin'

[anarch]

18. Black Sabbath, "War Pigs"

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death construction

In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds

Oh Lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the way
Why don't the go out to fight?
They leave that up to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their Judgement Day comes


Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more War Pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour

Day of Judgement, God is calling
On their knees the War Pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings

Oh Lord yeah!

[ghostsofgiants]

19. Protest the Hero - "Soft Targets Dig Softer Graves"

Now's the time to take all your rage and your
frustration and focus it in a positive way
It's time to fight but only for the democracy
that has been ripped from beneath our feet

Is it ridiculous to believe that killing the innocent is murder?
But it is to believe that nothing can be done
These people are not machines, they're living, they're breathing,
They're dying, they're human beings
Who cry "please don't kill me" in the same trembling frequency we do
Propaganda screams "have you forgotten?"
In six minute intervals so loud that you can't escape them,
But now I'll ask have you forgotten?
About the young men in boxes,
About the choking in the field,
About a treaty (of a palace in the swamp) that was set to end it all?

It's safe to say I'll never forget
The day I first heard your voice, laced with undertones of hate and vengeance
I suppose all that matters is dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori,
Or at least it still acts as an effective facade
To mask the burning bush's political alternative agenda
How sweet and fitting is it to die for one man's greed?