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Great topic, Glenn.
The first that springs to mind is "Think Again," written by the great Anglo-Irish folksinger Dick Gaughan, and most famously recorded by Billy Bragg. It, too, is about the Cold War and the nuclear threat.
Do you think that the Russians want war?
These are the parents of children who died in the last one
Do you think that it's possible, knowing their past
That they'd ever consider repeating the last
When 20 million were slaughtered by Nazi invasion?
They died fighting on our side, you know,
In a fight to defend humankind
Against Nazi terror and hatred
In the name of humanity, bitterly torn
In the name of our children as yet to be born
Before we do that which can never be undone I beg of you
Think, think again, and again and again and again and again
Do you think that the Russians want war?
They're the sons and the daughters
of parents who died in the last one
Do you think that they'd want to go through that again
The destruction, the bloodshed, the suffering and pain?
In the second World War
out of every three dead, one was Russian
If we try with all of our power
Can we not find a way
To peacefully settle our difference?
Do you think that the Russians want war?
Will the voice of insanity lead you to total destruction?
Will you stumble to death as though you were blind?
Will you cause the destruction of all humankind?
Will you die because you don't like their political system?
There will be no survivors, you know—
No one left to scream in the night
And condemn our stupidity
Think, think again
and again and again and again and again
The repetition is very powerful. And the potted history lesson of the USSR's place in 20th c. geopolitics lends the song a real moral authority. I mean, really—who among us knew that a full third of all casualties in WWII were Soviet? Who among us suspected that there would be no survivors in a full-scale global thermonuclear exchange? (The way he tosses off that line with a casual "you know" just destroys me; it's a real "everything you know is wrong" kind of moment.)
And the story behind the song, from Gaughan's website, is just inspiring. It's actually based on a Russian poem. Imagine that. Imagine reading Russian poetry, at a time when most people didn't even think that Russians wrote poetry, that Russians were some sort of other species to humanity, cold-blooded and uncultured, possibly an upright-walking form of crustacean.
And here's Gaughan on the Reagan/Thatcher years:
Sometimes I genuinely do believe that the sane people are all in mental hospitals and the lunatics really are being allowed to run the show.
Now THAT's speaking truth to power. |
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