Over 30 years of songwriting and the theme of war has come up thematically quite a lot. My punk band, Swindled, was heavy on pacifism. Our anti-Iraq manifesto from 1982 (yes...a decade before the Gulf War) was entitled Call To Arms. The opening line inspired the title to our 2011 reunion album Its Only Peace That you Want, Its Only War That You Get. My next band was Moving Targetz - we wrote a song about conscription entitled The Call which was never recorded. But in 1987 we did record Who We Are which asks the question, less cynically: If we can stand in silence for one minute every year/Why cant we stop the violence for all eternity?. [see video link] The answer, simply, is that we are a warring species. And to that end we have armies and brave men and women who, out of no deliberate forthought of hatred or malice, must on occasion defend us from those who do. Until recently Canadians were peacekeepers. We now find ourselves in an awkward place in the global theatre with its share of detractors. I may not be for war but I am all for defense. I fully support our troops because I enjoy the freedom Ive grown accustomed to and for that of my kids. Remembrence Day has become a politically charged day of reflecting on who sacrificed their lives and why. The reality of my day job is that I have to pass by literally hundreds of soldiers and airmen every single day who died so that I might be able to reflect on their loss. They no longer live so the rest of us can. I watched the burial of Brigadier General Ted Brown (age 102) three days after the assassination of Cpl. Cirillo on Parliament Hill (age 24). The war is never over and so the memories must live on. https://youtube/watch?v=G5Sqgod4Wh4
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 02:17:21 +0000
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