My own opinion is likely to find equal disfavor from both sides of the issue. Odd, how often that happens.

I find "No Man's Land" a good example of why anti-war songs are almost always bad songs. It reminds me of Keats's comment that "We hate poetry that has a palpable design design upon us - and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket." Songs like this seem to say, "If you don't like me, then you're not against war." They also provide a spurious moral comfort by implicitly (as in "No Man's Land") or explicitly (as in Dylan's "Masters of War") blaming war on "them" -- them being capitalists/fascists/arms-merchants/jingoists/fill-in-the-blank. If war is "their" fault, then it can't be the singer's, or the listener's. Thus the song constructs a cozy moral cocoon, in which we can congratulate ourselves for not being evil. Finally, on a somewhat deeper and subtler level, such songs actually provide an apologia for war by implying that war is a tragedy -- and a tragedy by definition (cf. the phrase "tragic inevitability") is something that can't be stopped and is no one's fault. I don't know how to stop wars, but I'm pretty sure that looking wistfully at the sky and whispering "Why?" isn't going to do it.

As for "Willie McBride's Reply," I've never actually heard the song, but judging from the lyrics, I'd call it the most hilarious embodiment of jock-strap militarism since "The Ballad of the Green Berets."


Jon Corelis
Windows of Air: Songs by Jon Corelis