Song of the Day Catch-Up

Well then Pete. I guess I'll have to do a few songs to make up for my time away from the computer  :P

Today's song has been inspired by a study avoidance prompted SeaChange marathon... classic show :)

So today it's Colin Hay's 'Death Row Conversation'

You can have a free listen at www.last.fm/music/Colin+Hay/_/Death+Row+Conversation

A moment of your time now
As mine is closing in on me
A simple farewell rhyme to
Anyone who hears me

I have walked in shadows
I have walked in blindness
My life now lies behind me
I have only one tomorrow

My name is Jake
I have made more than one mistake
Where I lost all sense of good reason
Now my time has come
There's nowhere I can run
Oh Lord, please give me courage

The Sister she's my saviour
She's my one and only friend
I know I do so love her
She says that she will miss me

Tomorrow they will burn me
They say that it will cause no pain
But what greatly concerns me
Is who of them would really know

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven
With one more setting sun
And dinner just for one
Oh Lord, please give me courage

And as the night grows darker
My fear it now surrounds me
I wish I could be stronger
Oh Sister can you hear me

Take this wretched soul
Try to make it whole
It's true I have been a sinner
I know I've done wrong
And all I have is this song
Oh Lord, please give me courage

Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Now my time has come
There's nowhere I can run
Oh Lord, please give me courage

A little sad, but it's a song that seems to really strike something within me when I listen to it, maybe it's just the combination of Colin's voice, a voice that seems to have lived a lot, and the basic guitar accompaniment. Anyway, I like it, so have a listen and let me know what YOU think.

The second song, is from the AWESOME Fred Smith, called 'You And Me'

Written about when he was in Bougainville, it really reminded me what a personal sacrifice he made going over as a civilian to do his part in restoring peace, and that while his is a great story about the power of song to communicate, that it wasn't all happy happy joy joy campfire singing. Anyway, beautiful song, fascinating man.

Young people these days burn their CDs

They're dropping their 'H's, dropping their 'E's

They don't go up drinking in proper bars

And are deeply suspicious of men with guitars

So I took this job, that's what I did

There's gotta be a better way of making a quid

Than playing the pub circuit and selling CDs

Full of songs about you and songs about me

See the sun come on the Buka Passage

Could be six weeks 'til you get this message

I spent last night drinking with Tor

Down at the Kuri Village Resort

Remind me never to drink with Norwegians

It causes the boys to doubt my allegiance

I tell it's better than drinking with Swedes

And thinking about you and thinking about me

The wash-wash Marys are sweeping the floor

A flak jacket hangs from a nail on the door

As the years go by the problems here grow

But the milk of kindness still seems to flow

And it's there in their laughter, there in their eyes

Even the killers here are nice guys

There's a grace and a softness that sets me at ease

So far from you and so far from me

Like I wrote in the Cit-Rep I've got a hunch

That the Deputy Governor has gone out to lunch

And he won't be back 'til June or July

Someone saw him setting off for Hawaii

In a boat with his guards and his number two Mary

I tell you that bloke, he's worse than Wayne Carey

He oughta no better at sixty three

Better than you and better than me

Out on a Sunday under coloured umbrellas

The girls with the girls, the men with the fellas

Shirts and collars and frocks and sarongs

And everyone's out in their best pair of thongs

Down to House Lotu they walk hand in hand

To pray to a God that was brought to their land

God is hope, and hope is free

I'm hoping that you are still hoping for me

Well the Colonel got busted and Jim's been sick

I had to ask William to stop being a prick

It happens each day 'round a quarter to three

Like a gentleman's version of PMT

Some nights I work through 'til after twelve

See your photograph blu-tacked to the plywood shelf

Slip under my mosquito net and drift out to sea

Dreaming of you and dreaming of me

Well I heard that Ted's finally fixed up the Bedford

While I'm out here pretending to be Robert Redford

And all my friends getting on with their lives

Raising a family and keeping a wife

I know life's never a walk in the park

And we live as we dream, alone in the dark

But right now I could use your company

Send this letter with love, to you from me

(some of the words are guesses, I apologise for any mistakes)

Check it out at http://www.last.fm/music/Fred+Smith/_/You+And+Me

My last song is 'Song of Peace', as sung by David LaMotte

This is my song oh God of all the nations
A song of peace for lands afar and mine
This is my home, the country where my heart is
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine
But other lands have sunlight too and clover
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine
This is my song oh God of all the nations
A song of peace for their land and for mine 

Just a short one, reflects how I'm feeling at the moment about some world events

Dave's done some amazing work for peace and towards a better world, so I applaud him (plus he's genuinely a nice guy)

Not sure where you can listen to it, but on itunes there's a short clip

Song of the Day

Four songs today - in keeping with my theme, I couldn't have one without the others 

These songs have been on a special playlist on my ipod for awhile now, and were brought back to mind by photos I saw today of the rows upon rows of war graves in just one cemetery in France, from WWI. There was a picture of a gravestone on one of the sites, just showing the epitaph at the bottom - 'Till we meet again Father'. These songs just highlight for me the pain and loss of all wars and battles. 

The first, a song by Bruce Watson - 'Trenches'

There are trenches in the hills by Sarajevo

Where soldiers hunch against the wind and snow

Their eyes, their guns sparkle in the red glow

Of the houses burning in the town below

Their hearts are filled with pride

Their minds are filled with hate

God is on their side

They fight for glory, land and state

There's a trench in a field by Sarajevo

Where a mother lays her precious child to rest

He was looking for his father from the window

When a sniper's bullet took him in the breast

She mouths a silent prayer

She shivers in the frost

The countryside is bare

There's no wood for a cross

There are trenches that will rend the hearts forever

Of the women raped in anger and disdain

By the soldiers, who in peaceful times could never

Have believed they'd be so eager to cause pain

When purity is all

For women and for race

To the victor goes the spoils

To the victim sheer disgrace

 

There are trenches between people in the Balkans

Of ethnic pride and history's tie to land

But wherever hearts are cold and lives are broken

We all must see the blood on our own hands

From our shanty towns of shame

To the famine's cruel decay

Between us and them

We build trenches every day

Trenches every day

His website is: http://www.geocities.com/brucewatson1/

The second is Fred Smith's 'Kusi & You'

When Kusi and you were leaving for Bougainville

Part of the 2nd Battalion from Lay

I felt so proud, my husband the soldier

Working for peace in a land far away

I didn't understand about the Pangoona thing

Who's Francis Ona, what's BRA?

But I understood that you are a soldier

As you marched like a soldier from the barracks that day

I said I love you now

More than I ever did

Wish you weren't leaving, I wish you could stay

But I understand that you are a soldier

You are a soldier, you fight for your pay

When I got your first call, you'd made it to Buka

Were heading down south on a chopper that day

Four weeks then past, til you called me from Aranwa

Something had happened, you seemed so far away

And so I said 'Hey what you doing'

And you got all secretive

Government work, you said it's classified

Well let the Government know

It's your woman you're speaking with

Does the Government know of the nights I have cried

I'll bet I love you now

More than I ever did

I need you now, more than I could ever say

And I don't understand

Just what you're doing there

But you are a soldier, you fight for your pay

And the day that you left, was the first of December

Said you'd be home by the first of July

But I had to wait til the third of October

Just for this letter, it says that you died

It tells me you fell in the BRA ambush

Fought til the end, til you ran out of rounds

But Kusi just told me, that wasn't what happened

He said one of their men turned your claymores around

And I need to know

There was some better reason

Need to now, that it wasn't in vain

But the Moresby politicians

Seem to change every season 

This hole in my heart now, seems to remain

Because I love you now

More than I ever did

Need you now, more than I could ever say

I need to know

There was some better reason

Than you are a soldier, who died for his pay

Fred wrote this during his time in Bougainville working for DFAT, singing songs in Pidgin 

you can listen to a little at http://payplay.fm/iaincs (it's well worth listening to the snippets of his other songs)

The third - 'Were You There?' by Martin Pearson & the MP3

Were you there in Washington

When the eagle spread his claws?

Sat down with the lion-heart

To flout their own damn laws

Were you when the order came

Aboard an east-bound transport plane?

Where Jordy prayed to Jesus

To the Jesus he knows well

Who's words of peace will rule the Earth

When Allah's blown to hell

Were you there in Baghdad

When the bombs lit up the sky?

Did your spirit turn away

When you saw that child die?

Did you hear her mother cry

The self same tears as you and I?

And the bombers pray to Allah

And Allah knows them well

And Allah's words will rule the Earth

When Jordy's blown to hell

Were you there in Canberra

When the phone calls came?

Calling obligations in

Without a trace of shame

And another long sad day goes by

Too many tears we've yet to cry

And we pray to Gods and Saviours

Oh but surely we can tell

Their words will ring, in an empty world

When we're all blown to hell

and the final song, Martin Pearson & the MP3's version of 'Masters of War'

Ah you masters of war

You have built all the bombs

You have built the death planes

You've built all the guns

You hide walls 

And you hide behind desks

I just want you to know 

That I've seen through your masks

You've never done nothing

But build to destroy

You play with my world 

Like it's your little toy

You put a gun in my hand 

And you hide from my eyes

Then you turn and run faster 

When hard bullets fly

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

Well war can be won

You want us to believe

But I've seen through your eyes

And I've seen through your brain

Like I see through the water 

That run downs my drain

You fasten the triggers

For others to fire

Then you sit back and watch

As the death count gets higher

For threatening my babies 

Unborn and unnamed

You aint worth the blood 

That runs in your veins

And I hope that you die 

And your death will come soon

I will march by your casket 

In the pale afternoon

And I'll watch while they lay you 

Down on your deathbed

Then I'll stand by your grave 

'Til I'm sure that you're dead

(Harmonica solo)

Let me ask you one question 

Is your money that good?

Will it buy you redemption? 

Did you think that it would?

I think you might find 

When death takes it's toll

All the money you've made 

Won't buy back your soul

Ah you masters of war 

You have built all the bombs

You have built the death planes 

You've built all the guns

You hide behind walls 

You hide behind desks

I just want you to know 

That I've seen through your masks

All you masters of war, masters of war

phew.... it feels good to get that one off my chest...

You can check out Martin at www.7thdimension.com.au/index.cfm?artist_details=4

I'll put some more related links up when I can be bothered finding them, but for now, reflect and enjoy

My first contribution

In a non-egocentric way, this song- Peter- is so nice. I usually have phobias of listening to words, but these were really interesting. It's very Mikaela like song. Especially after David Lamotte agreed to join my polygamous marriage and have my children. So here are the lyrics:

Peter
Dave Lamotte

What I'm saying, friend, may surprise you
Though I trust you will listen and hear
I'm not out to make you angry
We both know beneath our anger lies our fear
It sounds so simple and it's so complicated
Not gentle, not just a warm feeling
Many will die in the name of peace
But war will not lead us to healing

I meant what I said, Peter, put down your sword
Did you forget or did you think I was joking?
This is not why I'm here, Peter, not to destroy
The world is already so broken
Maybe you think I'm a fool
Maybe a fool's what I am
Maybe I will die for nothing
And nothing will change in the end

I meant what I said, Peter, put down your sword
Did you forget or did you think I was joking?
This is not why I'm here, Peter, not to destroy
The world is already so broken
Maybe you think I'm a fool
Maybe a fool's what I am
Maybe I will die for nothing
If nothing will change in the end

Yes, I am scared and I'm angry
That we live in this occupied land
Where the Romans do not rule my hands
There are so many lives on the line here
This is not some philosopher's game
And if you draw your sword Peter
You may not raise that sword in my name

God bless the children of Abraham
God bless the Romans who reign
God bless the peacemakers and warriors
Who each think the other insane

But I meant what I said, Peter, put down your sword
Did you forget or did you think I was joking?

Please note, the similarities in name are purely coincidental!