| The Animals – Sky Pilot Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| The term “Sky Pilot” is what the slang name for the chaplain in all English speaking countries military services The song is about the hypocrisy of monotheistic religions like Christianity and their support for war and killing. It came out in 68 during the Vietnam war but was about religion in war in general. Christianly of course, in its modern form anyway, which was invented by the Romans in around the 3rd century, is about social control, and its main aim is to scare people into submission with fantasies about having the things in death that they cant have now, or suffering in a mythical place called hell if they do not tow the line in life. Its role is essentially to maintain systems of inequality and has been used very effectively in pre-capitalist agrarian societies and in our socio-economic system of capitalism today which works by having a very small amount of the population owning around 80-90 per cent of the capital. The role of the ‘right’ in politics is also to maintain these systems of inequality, which is of course why religion is associated with the political right in all Western countries. In pre-capitalist society, the Church was very closely associated with kings or Queens for the same reason and a new king would always go through a ceremony in which the church would make it clear that his word was God’s word.. The rulers of a particular society use religion to maintain order and stop the people rising up against unfair conditions, and yet when it suits the leaders of these societies and they want to go to war, they claim it to be something being done in the name of God. Read a few history books and see how the Sky Pilots on the Western Front in WW1 would bless the guns before sending their solders into battle. Rayman, I’m sorry, but I hardly think they “missed the bullet” with this song. If you analyse its lyrics, its pretty well spot on. Christian soldiers have, apparently, with their Gods blessing, made war on, and killed more innocent people throughout history than all the other religions combined. You can’t really argue that the Vietnam war was about American, Australian, NZ etc soldiers killing to protect their countries or themselves, considering it was a civil war which had absolutely nothing to do with them… | |
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