When a thread gets to be over 200 posts, the best I can usually do is skim - but I'm sure my favorite hasn't been listed, since it isn't well known (yet).

During the height of the Bosnian War, Lois Lyman (who wrote "Wiscasset Schooners" and "Going On") read a newspaper article about a particularly gruesome slaughter of six children. The song she wrote, "Sarajevo" is, hands down, the best anti-war song I've ever heard - every bit as powerful and simple as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" or "Come Away Melinda." The line that brings me to tears is repeated at the end of each verse - "What has war to do with children?"

Without Lois's permission, I'm hesitant to post the full lyrics - but I give you the first three verses:

Children watch the snow drifting down, drifting down -
Children watch the snow drifting down, drifting down -
Footprints in the snow of a sleepy town
What has war to do with children?

Footprints in the snow where the children played -
Footprints in the snow where the children played -
Teardrops in the snow where six were laid.
What has war to do with children?

Teardrops in the snow where the mothers cried -
Teardrops on the snow where the mothers cried -
Laying down the flowers where their children died
What has war to do with children?

It gets more powerful from there.

Other than the title and the presence of snow in the lyrics, the song could be about almost any war ever fought. I think of both Iraq and Afghanistan - and Darfur, and Uganda, and all the others.

Dan Schatz