This is as close as I may ever come to an ANZAC song, and I offer it with some trepidation, because there are real singers and musicians out there, and I cant really either sing or play, but I needed this for Reimagining Peace, and I am hoping it is good enough. (Would anyone like to record a better version?) I wrote the lyric about twelve years ago now, and Jude wrote the music, out of the conviction that there are too many songs about dying for ones country, and not enough about what a soldiers really country asks for, which is to kill for it. The cultural representations of war tend to forget that soldiers are often mentally traumatised by doing the job of killing. Often, the language of sacrifice doesnt really have room for it. As a lifelong pacifist, I get tired of other pacifists who continually point the finger at the universal soldier who really is to blame. No: warmongering governments and profiteering armaments manufacturers really are to blame - and the cultural hegemonies which lock people into conflict. The fiancee in the song has been deliberately written to rehearse all the old cliches of that hegemony. Killed for my Country (Words by Giles Watson. Music by Judith Reid.) “What happened in the trenches to turn your heart from me, When you took your bayonet to fight for all the free? Have you found another mistress, whom you met behind the lines?” “No, I spent four years watching schoolboys crippled by the mines. I have found no other mistress; I have married death and war, For I’ve killed for my country, now I can love no more.” “But you promised you would hold me when freedom had been won, And we kissed before you marched away, shouldering your gun, Oh, how could such love wane and die amid the gallant host?” “Ah, but love is but a spectre, and gallantry a ghost, When your foe’s eyes look into your own saying, ‘What we fighting for?’ And I’ve killed for my country, now I can love no more.” “But you were noble men and brave when you went to fight the Hun, Why do you hang your head when the victory is won? And look, you wear bright medals pinned above your heart!” “I wear them for my enemy; I blew his head apart. I watched him flailing in the mud, his hand clenched like a claw; I have killed for my country, now I can love no more.” “Then I’ll bid you goodbye though I’ve waited these four years, I’ll burn your crumpled letters and I’ll wipe away my tears, For you went to bring home glory, but you come with nought but shame.” “Girl, you speak just like my Captain, who cried out, ‘Play the game!’ But my reflection in those dying eyes will haunt me ever more: I have killed for my country, now I can love no more.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:41:26 +0000