Pulling the Pin

Kate Bush is on my mind due to the exciting news that several of her albums are being remastered (The Sensual World and The Red Shoes), and she is revisiting songs from those albums to create what she's calling The Director's Cut.

The other thing on my mind tonight is the United States military engagement in Libya. Yes, I want the people of Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi...but I can't find it in me to feel optimistic about the US getting involved, especially in the midst of the education/public services funding crisis happening in the United States. I'm flashing back to 2003 when the US bombed Iraq...(eight years ago!!)...

Kate Bush, as it happens, is fairly prolific in her anti-war songwriting. I pulled the three most relevant of those songs to share with you. They are fantastic, affecting songs.

The first of those three is "Army Dreamers," and since it was a single, you might be familiar with it. It's a quiet song sung from a mother's perspective as the body of her son is returned home to England. There are so many things her son could've done, but never got the chance. It seems that the army may have been the only viable option for him.

...He never even made it to his twenties

What a waste  --

Army dreamers

The song is in waltz time, which is interesting, and beneath the guitar-plucks and clicking (of a camera?) you can hear a man yelling what sound like orders. There are also male voices layered beneath Kate's vocal.

Within the context of the video, I think Kate might be portraying the mother imagining herself in her son's shoes, or at least with him in the battlefield. 

Click on song titles for links to lyrics.

"Army Dreamers" (from Never for Ever)





"Pull Out the Pin" (from The Dreaming)

This song...whew...this song is as good as anything anyone's ever done. You'll want to check out the lyrics for yourself (if you follow the link embedded in the song title above, you'll see a great piece of analysis below the lyrics by Theresa_Gionoffrio). 

Essentially, this is a Vietnam War song sung from the perspective of a Viet Cong male. 

The part of the song that effects me most, that has often brought tears to my eyes, is in the chorus.

Just one thing in it,
Me or him and I love life
I love life
I love life

You know it's bad, when loving life means you're willing to destroy the life of someone else. Her vocal...says it ALL.

"Breathing" (from Never for Ever) This song was also a single.

"Breathing" references nuclear bombing, and a lot of people think it's about a child's reaction to that reality from within the womb. In fact, the womb is a metaphor for the bigger picture of our relationship with the earth, our dependence on it, and our interconnectedness with each other. When something terrible is carried out somewhere in the world, everyone is affected.

After the blast,
Chips of Plutonium are twinkling in every lung.
I love my beloved,
All and everywhere

And there's no escape from what others do to this world, to us, because we all have to keep breathing.

Only the fools blew it,
You and me knew life itself is Breathing.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with one of my favorite poems of all time.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell

 

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, 
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. 
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.