My older brother is in the Army National Guard and he had to go through Basic Training(basically Boot Camp), which he recalled to be the worst weeks of his life. He also claimed to me that the fresh-out-of-highschool men there were childish and gun crazy, or "kids with guns". I wasn't in Basic, so I can't say that I've had the pleasure to be around those new recruits but he has told me about them. They join the National Guard half-cocked and ready to kill. A guy in Basic apparently couldn't figure out why we shouldn't bomb the entire Middle East area. Those guys were naive, immature, and ignorant. I'm not sure if Gorillaz intended for this song to describe U.S. soldiers in general, but I can see how it could.
A lot of young people join the military because they see it as a way out of poverty. Generally poverty = ignorance + desperation = trigger-happy soldiers who have no idea what they are getting into. It is the same as joining a gigantic, powerful gang to a lot of them. I believe this song is general enough to adress the problem at its source: kids losing their innocence young and becoming monstrous killers when (and indeed if) they grow older. The actual cause of it is ambiguous in the lyrics, but speaking generally, I think it is completely fueled...
A lot of young people join the military because they see it as a way out of poverty. Generally poverty = ignorance + desperation = trigger-happy soldiers who have no idea what they are getting into. It is the same as joining a gigantic, powerful gang to a lot of them. I believe this song is general enough to adress the problem at its source: kids losing their innocence young and becoming monstrous killers when (and indeed if) they grow older. The actual cause of it is ambiguous in the lyrics, but speaking generally, I think it is completely fueled by poverty and the ignorance that comes hand-in-hand with it.
My older brother is in the Army National Guard and he had to go through Basic Training(basically Boot Camp), which he recalled to be the worst weeks of his life. He also claimed to me that the fresh-out-of-highschool men there were childish and gun crazy, or "kids with guns". I wasn't in Basic, so I can't say that I've had the pleasure to be around those new recruits but he has told me about them. They join the National Guard half-cocked and ready to kill. A guy in Basic apparently couldn't figure out why we shouldn't bomb the entire Middle East area. Those guys were naive, immature, and ignorant. I'm not sure if Gorillaz intended for this song to describe U.S. soldiers in general, but I can see how it could.
A lot of young people join the military because they see it as a way out of poverty. Generally poverty = ignorance + desperation = trigger-happy soldiers who have no idea what they are getting into. It is the same as joining a gigantic, powerful gang to a lot of them. I believe this song is general enough to adress the problem at its source: kids losing their innocence young and becoming monstrous killers when (and indeed if) they grow older. The actual cause of it is ambiguous in the lyrics, but speaking generally, I think it is completely fueled...
A lot of young people join the military because they see it as a way out of poverty. Generally poverty = ignorance + desperation = trigger-happy soldiers who have no idea what they are getting into. It is the same as joining a gigantic, powerful gang to a lot of them. I believe this song is general enough to adress the problem at its source: kids losing their innocence young and becoming monstrous killers when (and indeed if) they grow older. The actual cause of it is ambiguous in the lyrics, but speaking generally, I think it is completely fueled by poverty and the ignorance that comes hand-in-hand with it.