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Reconciliation, self-awareness, and finally the humility that makes peace possible comes only when culture no longer serves a myth but the most precious and elusive of all human narratives--truth.

(Hedges, War Is a Force p.82)

War & Popular Culture

Songs

With protest songs and pro-war songs, popular media has not shied away from speaking about armed conflict in the world, whether for, against, or somewhere in between. And support for the soldiers and those serving in the armed forces is not always indicative of support for the decision to join the armed conflict. From the early years of American history, songs like "Yankee Doodle," originally meant to mock the American effort by their former French and Indian war allies the British; and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," with a tune borrowed from the anti-slavery song "John Brown's Body," song music and lyrics have often changed hands. The modified song thus goes on to support or decry new causes, sometimes entirely forgetting their former meaning.

Dissent

Tori Amos - Yo George, Dark Side of the Sun (2007) from American Doll Posse
Amos' American Doll Posse leads off with "Yo George." In the track, Amos wonders, "Where have we gone wrong, America?" and asks, "Is this just the madness of King George?" She then blasts the president's job performance, singing ever so gently, "You have the whole nation on all fours." The record-closing anti-war anthem "Dark Side of the Sun" asks, "How many young men have to lay down their life and their love of their woman for some sick promise of a heaven?"

Pearl Jam - World Wide Suicide (2006) from Pearl Jam
According to lead member of the band Eddie Vedder, the song is primarily about the friendly-fire death of American soldier in Afghanistan, Pat Tillman. Vedder notes that the song is to tell the truth, and is also about the others like Tillman who did not receive as much media coverage. "I felt the earth on Monday. It moved beneath my feet/ in the form of a morning paper. Laid out for me to see./ Saw his face in a corner picture. I recognized the name. /Could not stop staring at the. Face I'd never see again." The chart spent 3 weeks as No #1 on Billboard and received a notable reception.

John Mayer - Waiting on the World to Change (2006) from Continuum
John Mayer has spent 33 weeks on the music charts with what sounds like an anti-war song. "Now if we had the power/to bring our neighbors home from war/they would have never missed a Christmas /no more ribbons on their door/." But for the 29-year-old singer, "Waiting on the World to Change" turns into more of an explanation for why his generation seems so apathetic. "It's not that we don't care,/ We just know that the fight ain't fair/ So we keep on waiting/ Waiting on the world to change."

Neil Young - Album: Living with War (2006)
In a time of crisis, subtlety is not an option, and speed is essential. Neil Young recorded the nine original songs on this album in six days, just a month ago. He wrote four of those songs on the day he cut them. And in all nine, Young charges the current president and his administration with, among other things, lying, spying, waging war with no right or reason and dereliction of duty to the nation's founding ideals. He then calls for the most extreme judgment available to the American people in "Let's Impeach the President," with rusty-fuzz guitar, the righteous muscle of a hundred-strong choir, a trumpet playing "Taps" and the self-incriminating voice of Bush himself.

Merle Haggard - America First (2005) from Chicago Wind
There is little doubt that Haggard's achievements will stand as being among the highest in all of popular music history, not just in country music. His new album, Chicago Wind, is a fresh reminder of just why he is so important. And it speaks volumes about him that he was asked this year to open shows for both Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones...Haggard is not afraid to speak his mind. And he does so again, very frankly, in the song, "Rebuild America First." "That's the News," his 2003 song commenting on Iraq, pretty much chastised the government and the media for swallowing the administration's spin that the war was over and won. Now he moves on to the matter of the U.S. being in Iraq, period. "Rebuild America First" is pretty honest and blunt. In part, he sings: "Yea, men in position but backing away/ Freedom is stuck in reverse/ Let's get out of Iraq and get back on the track
/And let's rebuild America first."

Green Day - American Idiot (2004) from American Idiot
You can guess who the "American Idiot" is in the bang-up title tune, as Armstrong rages against the "subliminal mind-f*** America" of the George W. Bush era: "Welcome to a new kind of tension/All across the alien nation."

The Black Eyed Peas - Where is the Love? (2003) from Elephunk
On the night after Christmas in 2001, Will came up with a beat and wrote a guitar part he liked. He then got some socially conscious thoughts off his chest he'd been holding in since September 11, including the verse, "Overseas we tryin' to stop terrorism/ But we still got terrorists here livin'/ In the U.S.A., the big CIA, the Bloods and the Crips and the KKK/ But if you only have love for your own race/ Then you only leave space to discriminate."..."It's like if Marvin Gaye was alive today," he said. "It's classic soul, some thinking sh--. ... The world needs this song right now. There's no song like that in urban music, pop music. We're saying some pretty deep stuff, some conscious stuff," says Will, lead in the band The Black Eyed Peas. After Will called Justin Timberlake sharing the ideas for the song, the words "Where is the love" were stuck in Timberlake's head. Timberlake wrote the song's chorus within 15 minutes.

Jim Page - Album: Collateral Damage (2002)
A "not for the faint of heart" post 9-11 batch of prophetic, political, personal and even beautiful songs that ask 'what are we doing' in a way that's direct, dynamic and spare - just the inimitable Jim Page and his guitar.

System of a Down - Boom! (2002) from Steal This Album!
A video for "Boom!" was filmed with director Michael Moore as a protest against the War in Iraq.

  • MTV Is Wary Of Videos On War (New York Times) March 26, 2003.
    Though images of war are dominating television screens, one channel is not having it. The day after the war in Iraq started, a memo was distributed through the offices of MTV Europe by its broadcast standards department. The memo cites explicit examples. These include videos that relate directly to the war in Iraq, like ''Boom!'' by System of a Down.

Misanthrope - Tranchées 1914 (2000) from Misanthrope Immortel
The start is heroic, "I wade in the trenches of September 14 / Always first, ahead of the attacks / Let us revive the "Great War" / Achieved by men, heroes of today" but the noble call of the war quickly fades to terror: "The night wakes us among our nightmares / The cries of horror remind us that it is true..."

Ricardo Arjona - Si El Norte Fuera El Sur (1996) from Si El Norte Fuera El Sur
Cited in a 1997 article in the New York Times as an "anthem of indignation"... the song's video shows a death squad victim on a cobblestone street wrapped in an American flag and soldiers in American uniforms munching sandwiches as they fire on unarmed protesters. "'The Stars and Stripes has taken possession of my flag, and our liberty is just a whore."' The lyrics go on about various topics, but mention war among its main points, " With 18 you're a kid for a drink in a bar / but you're a full man for war and murder / hurray for vietnam and hurray for forrest gump."

Mettalica - One (1989) from ...And Justice for All
The song is based on the Dalton Trumbo novel Johnny Got His Gun, wherein the main character soldier experiences "locked-in syndrome," with a perfectly functioning brain experiencing complete loss of sense and movement due to injury. The last two stanzas of lyric encapsulate the entirety: Darkness imprisoning me / All that I see / Absolute horror / I cannot live / I cannot die / Trapped in myself / Body my holding cell./ Landmines has taken my sight/ Taken my speech / Taken my hearing / Taken my heart / Taken my soul / Taken my life / Left me with life in hell. "One" was the first Metallica song for which a music video was created.

Bob Marley - No More Trouble (1978)
Using the words "Make love, not war," Marley invoked the spirit of the hippie peace movement from the 60's and then appropriated a version of the Beatles "all you need is love." "We don't need no more trouble / Make love and not war! 'Cause we don't need no trouble. / What we need is love (love) / To guide and protect us on. (on) / If you hope good down from above, (love) / Help the weak if you are strong now. (love)."

Cat Stevens- Peace Train (1971) from Teaser and the Firecat
One of the most famous war protest songs of recent history, "Peace Train" was Stevens' first top ten hit. A notable cover of this song was done by the group 10,000 Maniacs in 1987 on the their album In My Tribe. However, Natalie Merchant of Maniacs pullled the track from the album when Stevens publically made threatening comments about Salman Rushdie. As Yusef Islam, Cat Stevens later said, " 'Peace Train' is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again. As a member of humanity and as a Muslim, this is my contribution to the call for a peaceful solution."

John Lennon - Imagine (1971) from Imagine
Written by: Lennon; Produced by: Lennon, Spector, Ono; Charts: 9 weeks; Top spot: No. 3
John Lennon wrote "Imagine," his greatest musical gift to the world, one morning early in 1971 in his bedroom at Ascot, his estate in Tittenhurst, England. His wife, Yoko Ono, watched as Lennon sat at the white grand piano now known around the world from films and photographs of the sessions for his Imagine album and virtually completed the song: the serene melody; the pillowy chord progression; that beckoning, four-note figure; and nearly all of the lyrics, twenty-two lines of graceful, plain-spoken faith in the power of a world, united in imagination and purpose, to repair and change itself.

"Imagine there's no countries / It isn't hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace..." Lennon shows the listener his dream for a peaceful world, eliminating the differences between us and removing all our reasons to fight, "Imagine there's no heaven..." "Imagine" is Lennon's musings on his conceptual country of "Nutopia," where there are no borders, flags, or laws. "Imagine" was Rolling Stone's 2004 pick for best song of all time.

Marvin Gaye - Album: What's Going On (1971)
Ambitious, personal albums may be a glut on the market elsewhere, but at Motown they're something new. These, from two of the Corporation's Finest, represent a subversive concept, allowed only to producers the overseerstars of Motown's corporate plantation as long as they didn't get too uppity. Both Gaye and Wonder have been relatively independent at Motown, their careers following their own fluctuations outside the mainstream studio trends, but these latest albums are departures even for them..."What's Happening Brother" picks up from "What's Going On," strengthening its impact by making its situation more specific: a brother returning from Vietnam and trying to get his bearings on the block again, shifting between questions about old hang-outs and fears that there's no work anywhere: "Say man, I just don't understand/What's going on across this land."

Black Sabbath - War Pigs (1970) from Paranoid
Reviewed in its time as "one of the best new songs born of Vietnam," the title springs from the folk myth of "Walpurgis Night," the witches' sabbath, and speaks to the absurdities of war. "Generals gathered in their masses / Just like witches at black masses / Evil minds that plot destruction / Sorcerers of deaths construction / In the fields the bodies burning /
As the war machine keeps turning / Death and hatred to mankind / Poisoning their brainwashed minds..."

Edwin Starr - Album: War & Peace/Involved (1969) featuring single: War (aka What is it good for, absolutely nothing)
Also covered by Bruce Springsteen, the lyrics are fairly simple, repeating the line "War, what is it good for? Ab-sol-ute-ly no-thing!"
War! It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War! Friend only to the undertaker
War! It's an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest in the younger generation
Induction then destruction-
Who wants to die?

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth (aka Stop, Hey what's that sound?) (1967 from Buffalo Springfield
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe (1966)

Bob Dylan - The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964) from The Times They Are a-Changin'
Though his association with the protest movement of the Sixties produced the enduring anthems "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'," the songs from this period skirted the obsolescence of topicality.

Bob Dylan - Masters of War , Talkin' World War III Blues (1963) from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
"Masters of War" damns the munitions-industry conspiracy.

Pete Seeger - Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (1962)
Seeger carried on as best he could, singing for young people at liberal colleges like Oberlin and Reed. En route to one of these concerts, Seeger had the inspiration for "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" On the plane, he pulled out his pocket-size song notebook: "Leafing through it, I came across three lines I'd written down, oh, at least a year or two before: 'Where are the flowers, the girls have plucked them. Where are the girls, they've all taken husbands. Where are the men, they're all in the army.' " He'd read this in a novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don, the three lines came from a Ukrainian folk song. For a year he had searched around for the original song, then given up, jotting down this fragment in hopes of using it some day. This time he glanced at the words, and "things just slipped into place." (Where Have All the Flowers Gone?)

Links

Support

Darryl Worley - I Just Came Back from a War (2006) from Here and Now
"I just came back from a place where they hated me and everything I stand for;
A land where our brothers are dying for others who don't even care any more.
If I'm not exactly the same good old boy that you ran around with before,
I just came back from a war."

Trace Adkins - Arlington (2005) from Songs About Me
And I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company,
I'm thankful for those thankful for the things I've done,
I can rest in peace, I'm one of the chosen ones, I made it to Arlington

Iced Earth - Album: Glorius Burden (2004)

Toby Keith - American Soldier (2004) from Shock'n Y'all
After opening with the likable "I Love This Bar," the Oklahoma native's first full album of new material since his 9/11 broadside "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" continues with songs of equal boldness, "American Soldier" and "If I Was Jesus." Toby Keith also addresses the joys of $2,000 boots and Dixie chicks, barbecues a music critic and, in "The Taliban Song," encourages opposition to that hardly celebrated organization, summoning the grace to sing of an Afghan herder living in a "two-bedroom cave." Alan Jackson's taste, Tim McGraw's cool: These are not for Keith, who aspires to a down-home version of the outrageous, closer to gangsta rap or shock rock. But unlike Ludacris or Marilyn Manson, Keith doesn't use controversy as a means to an edgy kind of country. His ravings are the main course.

Clint Black - I Raq and Roll (2003) Single
"You can wave your signs and protest
against America taking a stand,
the stands America's taking
are the reason that you can.
If everyone would go for peace
there'd be no need for war.
But we can't ignore the devil,
he'll keep coming back for more."

Darryl Worley - Have You Forgotten (2003) from Have You Forgotten
"I hear people saying we don't need this war
But, I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start your preaching let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?"

Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American) (2002) from Unleashed
If you're running down the country, hoss, you're walking on the fighting side of Toby Keith. Like Merle Haggard and Charlie Daniels at their most jaw-juttingly patriotic, this Oklahoma tough guy is pissed off, and he's itching to sing about it. Keith can deliver a controversial anthem like "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" in a way that's moving even if you don't subscribe to his America-right-or-wrong flag waving. "Red, White and Blue" is a folk song, really, sung with a confident twang and driven by big, ringing acoustic and electric guitars. His ode to post-September 11th America feels sincere -- even if his line about lighting up Central Asian skies "like the Fourth of July" sounds pretty awful considering the recent U.S. bombing of an Afghan wedding party.

Billy Ray Cyrus - Some Gave All (1992) from Some Gave All
Some Gave All finds Cyrus at home with virtually all country idioms, but bursting with a pop sensibility that gives his music freer play. A delightful cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" denies the tune's country origins and punches up its hip-shaking giddiness. Cyrus can chug along like a vintage New Waver ("Never Thought I'd Fall in Love With You"), belt out sexy blues weepers ("Ain't No Good Goodbye") and pause in nearly every song for showoffy screech-and-squiggle guitar breaks. His cornball wit is evident on "Wher'm I Gonna Live?" and "I'm So Miserable." The title song, mercifully last, could have snaked the prom-ballad market from Winger if it defended a girl instead of the flag. Cyrus is a novice who's cheekily bypassing the country-crossover route; he's headed for the arena, ready to rock.

Lee Greenwood - God Bless the USA (1990) from God Bless the USA
"I'm proud to be an American
where at least I know I'm free,
And I won't forget the men who died
who gave that right to me,
And I gladly stand up next to you
and defend her still today,
'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land
God Bless the U.S.A."

William Steffe/Julia Ward Howe - Battle Hymn of the Republic (1861)
This hymn was born during the American civil war, when Howe visited a Union Army camp on the Potomac River near Washington, D. C. She heard the soldiers sing­ing the song "John Brown's Body," and was taken with the strong marching beat. She wrote the words the next day:

I awoke in the grey of the morn­ing, and as I lay waiting for dawn, the long lines of the de­sired po­em began to entwine themselves in my mind, and I said to myself, "I must get up and write these verses, lest I fall asleep and forget them!" So I sprang out of bed and in the dimness found an old stump of a pen, which I remembered using the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.

Most well-known is the first stanza of Howe's lyrics, starting "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord," but she goes on to make more statements about God and also sound the cry for abolition: "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, /
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: / As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free." (CyberHymnal)

William Steffe/Thomas Bishop - John Brown's Body (1860)
During a visit to Washington in the autumn of 1861, poet Julia Ward Howe attended a public parade and review of Union troops. On her way back to Willard's Hotel she found her carriage delayed by marching regiments. To spend some time, she and her cohorts in the carriage sang a few of the war songs so popular those days, among them, "John Brown's Body," which contained the provocative words, "John Brown's body lies-a-mouldering in the ground.... His soul is marching on." Howe would have assumed that the John Brown of the song was the famous abolitionist. But the song belonged to a young Scotsman in the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia who shared Brown's name. The Scotsman was well aware of John Brown the abolitionist. Having the same name made him a prime target for many good-natured jokes. As the soldiers marched, they would hammer out, in folk-song fashion, the tune that Julia Ward Howe would later hear. Lines like "His Soul's Marching On" were meant to tease the Scotsman. But as the catchy verse traveled to other units, it was known only as a song about the John Brown who was captured at Harpers Ferry. New verses were constantly added:

"Old John Brown's body is a-mouldering in the dust, / Old John Brown's rifleís red with blood-spots turned to rust, /Old John Brown's pike has made its last, unflinching thrust, / His soul is marching on!"

Various

Dixie Chicks - Travelin' Soldier (2002) from Home
Home finds the chicks fluffing their feathers over a broody collection of tinged-with-melancholy numbers and a couple of song stories, such as Bruce Robison's maudlin "Travelin' Soldier" and Patty Griffin's "Top of the World." Free from lush Nashville textures, Home sounds spare and stringy, with zero bottom.

"Travelin' Soldier" tells the story of an 18-year-old soldier going off to Vietnam, and the girl he leaves behind. The end comes all too quickly, "One friday night at a football game/
The lords prayer said and the anthem sang / A man said folks would you bow your heads /
For a list of local vietnam dead / Crying all alone under the stands / Was a piccolo player in the marching band / And one name read and nobody really cared /But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair."

Iron Maiden - The Trooper (1983) from Piece of Mind
Not surprising for a death metal band to write a song about war and have it end in death for the narrator, but "Trooper's" ambiguously defending war or decrying it rage leaves only that in question. "Youll take my life but Ill take yours too / Youll fire you musket but Ill run you through / So when your waiting for the next attack / You'd better stand theres no turning back."

Vera Lynn - We'll Meet Again (1939)
The sweet melody combined with sweeter lyrics about a hopeful soldier's farewell, were a salient bearer of the spirit of the times. Vera croons over soft orchestral accompaniment, " We'll meet again, / Don't know where, / Don't know when, / But I know / We'll meet again / Some sunny day." "We'll Meet Again" would become Lynn's most famous song and would be featured by her singing the song in a movie of the same title.

Yankee Doodle (1755)
Yankee Doodle, is full of surprises, inconsistencies, paradoxes in its career. It is not really a song, but it is a band tune which no existing adult audience has ever sung together. The single stanza known to everyone is not a part of the Revolutionary War ballad, but belongs to an earlier period in its history. The music is unheroic; the title (a New England Noodle) is derogatory to the people who adopted it in spite of its ridicule. And yet it has become a piece of jovial defiance as stirring as The Campbells Are Coming. The melody, as has often been the case, was generally known for several years before it was turned to patriotic account. As early as 1764 the familiar quatrain was current in England, and by 1767 the tune was familiar enough in America to be cited in Bartonss (or Colonel Forrestss) comic opera, Disappointment, or The Force of Credulity. In derision of the foolish Yankee there soon began to multiply variants, most of which have come down by hearsay, and are very vague as to date;

Books

  • Andresen, Lee. Battle Notes: Music of the Vietnam War. (Savage Press) 2001

Articles

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Movies

War has found its way into modern cinema in a wide variety of presentations, from the epic battles of Braveheart to the quiet remembrances of army life in White Christmas. Click here for our list of recent war-themed films.

Television Shows

  • Generation Kill (2008) USA HBO miniseries
    A Rolling Stone reporter, embedded with The 1st Recon Marines chronicles his experiences during the first wave of the American-led assault on Baghdad in 2003. Based on the book by Evan Wright, the seven part miniseries follows the Marine First Recon battalion through the early days of the Iraq War with an unprecedented representation of the reality these soldiers lived. (imdb)

    The Road to Baghdad - David Simon's Generation Kill (The New Yorker) July 21, 2008.

  • Navy NCIS (2003- ) team of agents investigate crimes by Navy or Marine personnel
  • Army Wives (2007- ) - soldiers' wives deal with husbands being away at war
  • Major Dad (1989 to 1993) - a journalist with three daughters marries a marine
  • JAG (Judge Advocate General) (1995 - 2005) lawyers investigating crimes committed by Navy and Marine personnel
  • Tour Of Duty (1987 - 1990) - U.S. Army platoon in the Vietnam War
  • M*A*S*H (1972-1983) - doctors in a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War
  • Hogan's Heroes (1965-1971) - POW's in a German concentration camp.
  • F-Troop (1965-1967) - the U.S Calvary
  • Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C (1964-1969) - a country bumpkin joins the marines
  • McHale's Navy (1962-1966) - PT-boats in World War II

(Pinnacle Online)

Fashion

In the 1930's and 40's, wartimes tightened everyone's belts and caused material to be in short supply. The Board of Trade sent out the the word, "Make do and mend," encouraging households to use what they had instead of buying new. Already-existing garments were modified and modernized by their wearers in order to keep abreast of new trends in fashion. However, today militaristic patterns are more pronounced in the fashion industry in low-fashion arenas such as department stores to high couture. This is not to mention the fashion in the armed forces themselves with the design and redesign of military uniforms.

Books

  • King, Brenda. Utility Fashion in the War Years (Dept. of History of Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University) 1997.
  • Mollo, John. Military Fashion: A Comparative History of the Uniforms of the Great Armies (Barrie and Jenkins) 1972.
  • Pavitt, Jane. Fear and Fashion in the Cold War (V & A Publications) 2008.

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Sports

In a November 2001 article in The American Prospect, columnist Scott Stossel noted,

After September 11, it wasn't long before martial terminology returned to the airwaves: There was talk once again of blitzes and bombs, of aerial assaults and ground attacks, of going on the offensive and making moves to shore up the defense at home. There was talk of heroes and warriors, of duty and sacrifice, of trying to penetrate deep into enemy territory. I refer, of course, to the language of football, whose games were suspended for a week after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The deep linguistic and cultural connections between war and sports have been much noted...

  • Laser Tag (1980)
  • Paintball (1970)
  • Biathalon (1861)
  • Trap Shooting (1793)
  • Jousting (1200 AD)
  • Fencing (1100 AD)
  • Marathon (0 AD)
  • Martial Arts (350 BC)
  • Wrestling (1500 BC)
  • Boxing (3000 BC)
  • Archery (8000 BC)