Sovay

Like in pnestojko's comment, Andrew Bird has said many times that he doesn't know what the word "sovay" means. This, to me, says that the meaning of the word (which may not even exist anyway) is not really important. Instead of drawing power from the meaning of the words in the song, we should draw it from the feeling of the words.
"Sovay" is something of a soft word, it sort of rolls off the tongue. Combined with the music, it sort of evokes feelings of peace and calm in me.

That's what is important. I would agree that this is an anti-war song, except I don't think it's anti- anything at all. Instead, I'd call it pro-peace. This may or may not be what Andrew intended the song to mean, but I think it is contradicting the idea of "waging peace" that so many other anti-war songs exhibit.
Fighting back, even if it's for good purposes, even if it's nonviolent, is still fighting back. Conflict is what leads to violence and war. After all, fighting fire with fire just causes more burning. If people just stepped back for a minute and looked in on the world we live in, they'd realize that fighting has never gotten us anywhere, and neither has fighting against fighting. Look at Iraq today. We brought violence and warfare to the country in an attempt to stop violence and warfare caused by a dictator. And what has happened? More violence and warfare have spawned in the form of an insurgency. Continuing this way of dealing with the world is only going make the cycle repeat more. If we all just took it easy and accepted that we can't and shouldn't always be in control, people would be at peace, and there would be no more reason to fight.

I came up with an interesting interpretation for some of the more specific parts of the song: the narrator is at some sort of anti-war protest, perhaps preparing to do some sort of reenactment. All he can think about is how if he were in control, he'd fire all of those war-mongerers that have been in power. They are fighting against an enemy that they created in their minds, like Don Quixote and the windmills.
Playing Ride of the Valkyries is an interesting reference. Hitler played Ride of the Valkyries to his troops to get their adrenaline pumping in WWII. When people's minds are in a state like that, they act rashly and are less likely to think about what they are doing. I think it is also worth it to mention Valkyries themselves. Valkyries were warrior-women demigods from Norse mythology, who took battle heroes up to Valhalla (where the gods lived.) A doomed soldier would see a Valkyrie just before he died. This brings the whole concept of righteousness and religion into play. We are no longer fighting for material things, we are fighting because of a divine purpose. I think this is relevant because one could easily make the case that the U.S. involvement in the middle east is basically a holy war... the clash of two cultures, one predominantly Muslim and the other predominantly Christian, both feeling that their religion has the moral superiority. Anyway, he wants to fight against and fire those who have been pushing the war. Because if he were in power, everything would change, right? Next, a thought strikes him... he feels like he's been doing this before. And he has. We've been protesting wars forever, and they still continue to happen. This is something of a revelation for him- we have been doing this forever, why would it change this time?
So instead of going along with his original battle plan for peace (...ha...), he has a new idea: simply being at peace to promote peace.

Maybe this works, and maybe it doesn't. I say: it's worth a shot!

razajac: wow, nice post :) It's hard to sound intelligent in the wake of something like that, hehe