New Song: A Foreign War

Subject: New Song: A Foreign War
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:03 PM

A FOREIGN WAR


It's time for Sunday dinner when the bombs begin to fall
Talk of morning's sermon ends, interrupted by a call
And the family turns the TV on, and in silence watch the screen
Tiny bursts of brightness on night-vision black and green
Father wanders to the kitchen, runs water in the sink
Daughter drops a glass and Father doesn't think
He's halfway beneath the table, he's halfway back in time
Then he laughs and tells his Daughter, everything is fine.

Daughter changes into jeans to go outside to play
Mother reads the paper for there's nothing she can say
And Daughter stops and turns around, halfway to the door
Daddy, did you kill someone when you were in the war?
But Daddy doesn't answer, and his face turns into stone
The silence, loud as thunder, chills her to the bone
So she turns again and goes outside before she starts to cry
Father waits for time to move again, for this moment to go by

Mother lies in bed and wonders how she can ease his pain
In the dark before the TV, he sees it all again
And thinks it's all so far away, it's not really like it seems
You can't see the people dying, and you can't hear their screams
And it doesn't show how those who live will forever know that fear
Those pictures don't mean Jack to us who sit and watch them here
And his eyes lose their focus and he stares off in the night
And his face shines in the flashing TV light

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:07 PM

Woof. Whew. Yikes. No blessings here...

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foriegn War
From: Gareth
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:12 PM

Jeri - With my father it was the same.

Some wounds never heal.

Gareth

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 03:47 PM

Jeri, before I opened this thread I hoped it was yours. Thank you yet again for moving, truthful lyrics- I hope to hear it soon!

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: GUEST,Sonja
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 05:01 PM

Great lyrics!
I added a link to this song to the thread on New Songs for 9-11-01. Even though yours is about the US response to 9-11, it's still connected to those songs.

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 05:12 PM

That brought quite a lump to my throat....

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: BH
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 06:28 PM

With all due respect to your feelings I am sure that there are many widows, widowers, orphans (now) in the U S that are also staring blankly and wondering about their lives.

At least we are not targetting innocents---only maniacal zealots.

Doctors WIthout Borders has the audacity--today---to condemn our food drops as propoganda. At least the food dropping planes did not crash into what might be a considered a high rise cave for civilians in Afghanistan Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: 2 in harmony
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 06:55 PM

Jeri - What an incredible song! When I was a little girl I used to ask my father, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" Never got an answer as a child or as an adult. Regardless of which war or why, I thank you for one possible answer and the moving way in which it was expressed. Of course there may be many experiences and feelings which we cannot know unless we have been there.

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 07:21 PM

Thanks folks - at least a few people thought it was worth posting. I wasn't sure I should.

It wasn't meant to be about everybody or all possible views. Just one particular man, one particular family. It's not even necessarily about this war. The story isn't any more important than anyone else's. It's not meant to take any political side. I figure someone else can write those songs, and someone else can keep starting those threads. This song's about feelings, not beliefs, not right or wrong.

I guess a lot of kids asked their fathers what being in a war was like. When I was a kid, I DID ask my father if he'd ever killed anyone in WWII. I got the same reaction the girl in the song did. He wouldn't talk about anything to do with the war. When I was older, we had lots of arguments about Viet Nam. He still never talked about his own experiences.

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: GUEST,anne
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 07:42 PM

powerfull lyrics, useful in teaching history, especially today

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: BH
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 07:45 PM

So--the point is what? Let us bury and mourn our dead? Get on with life and harm others?

Perhaps you might listen to the new pieces by Kitty Donahoe and McCutcheon/Chapin/Mark. They give perspective to healing and to also restoring our civilization to ---a civilization. Churchill had it right(as does Tony Blair)"...it is either anarchy or order---and we had best make certain order prevails".

Bless Winnie---he had it right.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: BH
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 07:47 PM

CORRECTION: Should have proof read. 1st line should read at the end:"...get on with life and NOT harm others"?

BH

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 08:15 PM

I said above "This song's about feelings, not beliefs, not right or wrong."

Bill, I really have no idea how to explain the song if it's not clear from the lyrics. It's about one man's reaction to watching scenes from a war on TV. That's all. It could have been a Viet Nam vet watching the Gulf War. Without the "night vision" reference, it might have been about a WWII vet watching the Viet Nam war. There are no "shoulds," no "do this" - just his feelings. Maybe it's just not the sort of song you care for, eh?

No soap boxes.

Subject: RE: New Song: A Foreign War
From: BH
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 08:57 PM

WHy no soap boxes? Merely a commentary stating the thoughts representing innocents massacred---as I would have felt about the innocents at Mai Lai, Buchenwald etc;

As to watching images on TV. Think how this affect adults and children---compressed on a small screen like a cartoon or action film.

Radio can bring the horror more into context---and with the proper program into context of what is going on.

Not the scare headlines of the tabloids.

Peace would be nice---perhaps we---for the first time--have gotten past revenge and are looking for ways to retalitate and erase terrorism along with the sensitivity of spending millions to drop supplies to the innocents.

Having sad memories and flashbacks are a sad thing---I too have them. But, let us stay in the present---the r eality is that our innocents have been murdered. Our society is in jeopardy.

Period.

Bill Hahn