E.J.: Tim Erikson says (about "I Wish the Wars Were All Over"):

It sometimes seems like the best words have been worn out through use, and I'm reluctant to tire them further. Then, Sometimes, the simplest and most exhausted words and themes appear in a light that pierces. There's something in this song.

Last summer I had a very clear and terrifying vision of being forced to choose between my life and the life of a friend - being forced to identigy along some line we might never have though of before - the religions of our grandparents for example. Do you know the religion of your friends' grandparents? Do you think about it a lot? The song's stock characters and lack of specifics are real in ways contemporary writings on war rarely are, for all their titillating detail. Newspapers say horror is "out there" happening to "them." I think this song says "it's here."

I made the tune, and made the words out of scraps, the biggest of which is, again, from Connor. I spent more time trying to write about it than I did recording the whole CD.

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On the cd "Tim Eriksen" Appleseed Recordings, 2001. The Connor he refers to is "a manuscript of favorite popular songs written down by an American named Timothy Connor while he was imprisoned in Plymouth, England, during the Revolution."

Web site about the cd is here. ~ Becky in Tucson