The Gulf War Song is MF's attempt to create a Vietnam-War-Protest-Song-style song. Musically, it comes out beautifully, with tremendous harmonies. Lyrically, well... I can't help but feeling the song's somewhat ironic.
They can't sing about Vietnam, because they're a Canadian group and anyway, they're 20 years too late. So the song is about the Gulf War, a war fraught with ethical concerns, to be sure, but a war with hardly any casualties, which ended quickly and without any problems. The comparison to Vietnam doesn't work very well, making it a little strange.
The most interesting lines of the song are the first four, a really interesting analysis of both politically correct posturing and patriotic posturing. There's no way to make a song that won't offend someone, in some way, especially when you trod on such contentious territory.
As a result, the Gulf War Song is a little devoid of emotion. It wraps its beautiful music with a message about a cliched universal peace, as if to demonstrate that the only way to keep from offending is to not really say anything.
In the end, though, they do make a fairly effective sentimental appeal for the end of violence. But it's not really particularly hopeful that the appeal will be listened to.
That may be the main thing that distinguishes this from one of the old Vietnam Protest Songs- the cynicism inherent in it. A Vietnam protest song believed that the song could change the listener and the listener could change the system. This song makes a statement, but doesn't expect the statement to affect the listener in any real way.
The Gulf War Song is MF's attempt to create a Vietnam-War-Protest-Song-style song. Musically, it comes out beautifully, with tremendous harmonies. Lyrically, well... I can't help but feeling the song's somewhat ironic.
They can't sing about Vietnam, because they're a Canadian group and anyway, they're 20 years too late. So the song is about the Gulf War, a war fraught with ethical concerns, to be sure, but a war with hardly any casualties, which ended quickly and without any problems. The comparison to Vietnam doesn't work very well, making it a little strange.
The most interesting lines of the song are the first four, a really interesting analysis of both politically correct posturing and patriotic posturing. There's no way to make a song that won't offend someone, in some way, especially when you trod on such contentious territory.
As a result, the Gulf War Song is a little devoid of emotion. It wraps its beautiful music with a message about a cliched universal peace, as if to demonstrate that the only way to keep from offending is to not really say anything.
In the end, though, they do make a fairly effective sentimental appeal for the end of violence. But it's not really particularly hopeful that the appeal will be listened to.
That may be the main thing that distinguishes this from one of the old Vietnam Protest Songs- the cynicism inherent in it. A Vietnam protest song believed that the song could change the listener and the listener could change the system. This song makes a statement, but doesn't expect the statement to affect the listener in any real way.