war

When I Was Generous

April 29, 2022 — 1 Comment

That’s the title of this song because that was the line it was built around. I liked the inner rhyme of it, which I used as a form factor for the three lyrically different choruses.

I’ve been chipping away at writing this one for several weeks, and this week, Week 17 of #songaweek2022, the prompt of “couldn’t if I tried” actually helped me to finish the song.

Must give credit to H.G. Wells for the last verse. I’m pretty sure I’ve quoted this same passage of his novel Mr. Britling Sees It Through previously in this blog, and I know I included similar lines in another song I wrote. It’s just good! And feels especially timely right now. Wells was writing about World War I (“the war to end all wars”), and here we are a century later hearing “World War Three” tossed around on the news.

“War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and now—I am not dreaming—it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through. . . “

H.G. Wells, Mr. Britling Sees It Through

The whole world’s gone mad like it always was
Like it means to be forever
It’s the way we roll
Through the cosmic night
Oh we spin and we spin all day

When I was generous
I could believe we could help each other out of disgrace
Since I got cynical
I can’t even see your hand in front of my face

Let’s lay off the news for a little while
I don’t need to know the latest
Leave me in the dark
Underneath this rock
Let me just catch my breath today

When I was envious
I couldn’t see all the beauty right in front of my eyes
Now that I’m out of time
I find I believe we all can shine in the same sky

Come stand with me under the canopy
Of a thousand points of light
Breaking through the dark
Of the threadbare night
Till it’s bright with the newborn day

It wouldn’t be good for me
And I couldn’t if I tried to keep my life all to myself
So spill it out willingly
Flowers will grow up from the dirt where it fell

God in a Foxhole

April 19, 2019 — 4 Comments

It’s Good Friday again and I’m totally not feeling it. Or wanting to feel it. I’ve spent years struggling with the centrality of crucifixion in my Christian faith, and I know I’ll continue to. Instead of talking about it, here’s what I’ve got today:

Yes there are atheists in foxholes
And if there’s a god
Then God is there too
Breathing and bleeding
Cowering and killing
And wishing to die
And dying alone
And crying for home
When there is no home
Because bombs broke it up
And there’s no one to go home to anyway
And sometimes not even God believes
In the mud of a foxhole
In the arms of despair
But if god is there
Then God is there 

Baby of Bethlehem

December 24, 2014 — 2 Comments

I wrote this song in 2008, but it never felt finished until I rewrote the last verse yesterday. Peace to you and yours, to neighbors and strangers, allies and enemies, to all of us everywhere.

Lyrics:

Belfast and Belgrade, Beirut and Beijing

Baghdad and Bosnia filled with broken things

Tanks plow the streets

Bombs sown like strange seeds

Give them the baby of Bethlehem

 

El Salvador, Saigon, Sudan and Syria

Sierra Leone and Somalia are weary of

Fat cats and their dogfights

Nightmares in broad daylight

Give them the baby of Bethlehem

 

No crying he makes, no death or disease

What child is this who’s broken to be our peace?

 

Littleton, Newtown, Facebook and Hollywood

Pine Ridge and Ferguson and Bedford-Stuyvesant

We’re scared and suspicious,

Anonymously vicious

Give us the baby of Bethlehem

More on War

November 13, 2014 — 12 Comments

What if politicians had to actually fight the wars they waged? And what if we honored actual heroes – both military and otherwise – instead of proclaiming anyone in a uniform, and no one out of one, a hero? Good questions from the authors of the following two pieces I came across since writing my Veteran’s Day post.

In this piece, Frederick Buechner asserts that things might be different if the actual people in power, the ones making the decisions that push young soldiers around like pawns, had to fight too.

And here, David Masciotra asks us to reserve our hero worship for actual heroes, within and outside of the military.

Veterans deserve care and respect from their nation’s citizens, and sometimes – many times in recent years, I believe this includes citizens speaking out against the endless wars that produce so many veterans – and flag-draped coffins – in the first place.

The White Cliffs of Dover

November 11, 2014 — 4 Comments

I am pro-peace, and pro-veteran.

Veteran’s Day has often felt awkward and ambiguous to me, because I don’t support so much of my nation’s military action. But this old World War II song got stuck in my head last year, and it seemed fitting to make a video for Veteran’s Day this year.

Sifting through thousands of public domain images of veterans throughout America’s warring history, I pushed the politics aside and saw the faces and bodies of humans who have put themselves on the front lines for their people. I don’t always believe in their cause, but then, I expect that they don’t always either – which makes doing their job that much more difficult.

What I do wholeheartedly believe, is that war wounds soldiers. And so, I wanted to sing to them today.