Veteran's Day Jukebox

[shadowknows69]

"Brothers In Arms"
-Dire Straits

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arm

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

----------------------------------------------------------
"Goodnight Saigon"
-Billy Joel

We met as soul mates
On Parris Island
We left as inmates
From an asylum
And we were sharp
As sharp as knives
And we were so gung ho
To lay down our lives

We came in spastic
Like tameless horses
We left in plastic
As numbered corpses
And we learned fast
To travel light
Our arms were heavy
But our bellies were tight

We had no home front
We had no soft soap
They sent us Playboy
They gave us Bob Hope
We dug in deep
And shot on sight
And prayed to Jesus Christ
With all of our might

We had no cameras
To shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe
And played our Doors tapes
And it was dark
So dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together

Remember Charlie
Remember Baker
They left their childhood
On every acre
And who was wrong?
And who was right?
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight

We held the day
In the palm
Of our hand
They ruled the night
And the night
Seemed to last as long as six weeks
On Parris Island

We held the coastline
They held the highlands
And they were sharp
As sharp as knives
They heard the hum of our motors
They counted the rotors
And waited for us to arrive
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together


I used to play these two every Veterans day when I was on the radio. Post your favorites.

[applegrove]

1. I love that Dire Straights song. Ever since it came out..that has been one

of my favourites.

Here is another (though I am agnostic):

Fight the good fight with all thy might!
Christ is thy strength and Christ thy right.
Lay hold on life and it shall be
thy joy and crown eternally.

Run the straight race through God's good grace;
lift up thine eyes, and seek his face.
Life with its way before us lies;
Christ is the path, and Crhist the prize.

Cast care aside, lean on thy guide;
his boundless mercy will provide.
Trust, and thy trusting soul shall prove
Christ is its life, and Christ its life and love.

Faint not nor fear, his arms are near;
he changes not, and thou art dear,
only believe, and thou shalt see
that Christ is all in all to thee.

Fight the good fight with all thy might!
Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right!
Lay hold on life and it shall be
thy joy and crown eternally!

--J.S.B. Monsell

http://www.selahpub.com/Choral/ChoralTitles/410-635-FightTheGoodFight.html

[shadowknows69]

2. Goodnight Saigon proves the power of music to educate

or at least light that spark of interest. I was only 13 when "Nylon Curtain" came out and when I first saw the video for that song with Billy Joel singing it live with the chorus of veterans it set me off on a hungry path, reading and learning everything about the Vietnam War I could. This more than any other song I think woke me up to my world around me and the war I was born during.

[applegrove]

3. This poem too. High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr

High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bounds of earth

And danced the skies of laughter-silvered wings,

Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—

Wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence, hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung

My eager craft through footless hall of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew;

And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

[shadowknows69]

4. nice

n/t

[VeggieTart]

5. My boyfriend's a Black 47 fan..

I first heard their stuff this year and got him a whole bunch of CDs for our anniversary...

here's a good one:

DOWNTOWN BAGHDAD BLUES

Got a buddy in Najaf, he’s playing it straight
Prays to the Lord Jesus Christ every night
Got a homey in Samarra goin’ up the wall
Every time he hear an Islamic prayer call
Me, I don’t care much for Jesus or Mohammed
They don’t stop bullets to the best of my knowledge
Later for the both of you, catch you in eternity
Hopefully, towards the end of this century

I didn’t want to come here, I didn’t get to choose,
I got the hup, two, three, four Downtown Baghdad Blues.

I wish I was back home rootin’ for the Padres
‘Stead of dodgin’ bullets from Mookie El Sadr
I wish I was back in the land of Giuliani
Instead of takin’ heat from Ayatollah Sistani
Don’t know what I’m doin,’ but one thing is clear
Twenty years old, I can kill but I can’t buy a beer
Keep your head down, don’t get your brain cells fried
You’ll be home by Christmas - dead or alive!

I wish I was back in the US of A
Instead dodgin’ rockets in Falluji-ay
There’s a lady with my tattoo on her so special
Dream of her and me out in the desert
She ridin’ round in her Daddy’s Ford Explorer
I’m kickin’ in doors, hey, I thought this war was over
Got sand in my nose, sand in my eyes
But the sand can’t cover up the sights of a
Sniper with my number, got his finger on the trigger
Hope my baby’s okay, still waitin’ for a letter
All I get are emails, so much unsaid
It’s hot here, baby, but it’s so cold inside my head.

Mission accomplished, yeah, up on deck
Got no armor for my Humvee, left facin’ this train wreck
Shia don’t like me, want Islamic Revolution
Sunni say civil war is part of the solution
Maybe someday there’ll be peace in Fallujah
McDonald’s on the boulevard, Cadillac cruisin’
I’m tryin’ hard to keep this whole thing straight
But will someone tell me what am I doin’ here in the first place?

© Starry Plough Music (BMI)
ELVIS MURPHY

[shadowknows69]

6. Good one

what style of music. Is it actually blues? It reads kind of like rap.

[NightHawk63]

7. One of my personal faves: Springsteen's Brothers under the Bridge

Brothers Under The Bridge

Saigon, it was all gone
The same Coke machines
As the streets I grew on
Down in a mesquite canyon
We come walking along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Campsite's an hour's walk from the nearest road to town
Up here there's too much brush and canyon
For the CHP choppers to touch down
Ain't lookin' for nothin', just wanna live
Me and the brothers under the bridge
Come the Santa Ana's, man, that dry brush'll light
Billy Devon got burned up in his own campfire one winter night
We buried his body in the white stone high up along the ridge
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Had enough of town and the street life
Over nothing you end up on the wrong end of someone's knife
Now I don't want no trouble
And I ain't got none to give
Me and the brothers under the bridge

I come home in '72
You were just a beautiul light
In your mama's dark eyes of blue
I stood down on the tarmac, I was just a kid
Me and the brothers under the bridge

Come Veterans' Day I sat in the stands in my dress blues
I held your mother's hand
When they passed with the red, white and blue