Why Do We Fight?
Yikes – almost didn’t make my self imposed Monday deadline for the song of the week. I would’ve had to written myself up or something I guess.
It’s been pretty busy for me so the recording is pretty basic – guitar and vocals recorded live, sans fancy overdubs. or overdubs.
The challenge of this song was to remember how it went – it’s a pre-millenial number – as are a lot of my anti-war songs – in the end I could only remember i had written it in open D, so I stuck with that and made up the rest (if i did it once, why not again?) the original scratched out title on the lyric sheet was ‘red white and bullet’ that seems like a toby keith or ted nugent title. but i guess i can be just as heavy handed as they are, lest any of us have forgotten. One last note- i added the last line as i recorded it. If I were a crasser person (in person that is) than I probably would’ve used a different four letter word. I’ll save that for a live performance after one too many grain belts.
Dug the trench deep in the earth,
Deeper than the blood coursing through these veins
Held ground through a sleepless night
By the light of day no signs of freedom remain
And why do we fight I guess we do it cause€¦
Pulled back the trigger let the bullet
Said, €˜Now there€™s a God forsaken melody€™
Saw it reach to the other side
Saw it hit and saw a good man die
And why do I fight? I guess I do it cause€¦
And the red of the blood, the whites of the eyes
And the blue of an ocean of merciless violence
(and the blue of an ocean drowning us in silence)
I used to know why I fired at strangers,
But the more bullets fly, the less I know reason
I could be more if I were home with my family
That ringing of freedom is the tolling of treason
And why do we fight? I guess we do it €˜cause,
It€™s what we do best
But we best not do it, anymore
So stop the fighting, and screw this war.