A hit for Jonah Lewie in 1980 (number 3 in the charts). A Christmas hit at that, yet primarily an anti-war song.
Initially inspired by the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) from the Crimean War, the song includes WW1, with reference to Churchill, and the nuclear rivalry between America and the Soviets during the cold war of the 80s. So covers several generations of conflict.
The main message is the disconnect between a cold hungry soldier, either in the trenches or charging on his horse, and the generals far from the front line. A cold hungry soldier who was well aware he could easily die.
A simple request:
‘I wish I could be home for Christmas.
Wish I could be dancing now in the arms of the girl I love.
She’s been waiting two years long, two years long’.
Contrasts with an impossible dream:
‘If I get home, live to tell the tale, I’ll run for all Presidencies.
If I get elected, I’ll stop! I will stop the cavalry’.
…………………………
Flanders
Related, but unrelated and timely.
Remember Flanders 2014 (see link). Most of us abhor violent conflict on any scale and the heartbreaking loss of young lives. Yet there was dignity here in Flanders, in the white symmetrical stones and the neat names carved on walls. Row on row, just on the edge of our personal family histories, still not a remote date in a history textbook.
