I was intending to break from my musings on the North-South divide and write a piece on anti-war songs but I was so appalled at the bloodbath in Iraq yesterday that I remain amazed at how quickly Iraq has fallen apart.
Recently, the UN produced a report stating that Bush and Cheney’s bright shining lie will have cost them $3trillion……so far it has cost us (the UK) £5+billion – contrast that with the NHS deficit of £500+million – but the mind-numbing figures are 2 million Iraqis that have fled their country, the 2 million who are displaced and the obscene (holocaust?) number of 600,000+ Iraqis who have died, let alone those maimed and traumatised.
Very soon, the neo-conservative Blair will depart and we’ll have no more of the messianic, money-grubbing zealot and we’ll welcome, errm….Gordie, his pathologically sulking, witless paymaster and fellow war criminal.
And now for a musical interlude. Anti-war protest songs have played a long and honourable part for centuries. As a teenager, I recall the scores of excellent and potent songs that accompanied those many anti-Vietnam war rallies.
Of all the Iraq anti-war songs – Neil Young, Billy Bragg, REM, Lenny Kravitz – the 2 clips that I’ve posted are the best......
Randy Newman is the finest writer of songs the past 45 years – arguably with Dylan.
I used to knock around with members of Fairport Convention in the late 60’s in North London and Richard Thompson, even at the age of 17-18, was a wizard guitarist. Richard tended to have a socio-political edge to many of his songs but ‘Dad’s gonna kill me’ is a stunning piece of writing and a wonderful song.
