Like so many of the finest Keane songs, this one gripped hold of me and presented a puzzle with few clues as to the reason for the personal impact. Ostensibly it tells the emotional side of a civilian war, perhaps in a hometown, perhaps from an adult’s perspective as a child.
Perhaps I feel I bit guilty co-opting this message, for War Child, but perhaps my interpretation will resonate with others. For the past four years, culminating with the death of my mother a few weeks ago, I have really come to grips the extremes of the abuse I suffered growing up. I was bullied relentlessly at school – and then when I fled to come home – the endless emotional and physical rage and abuse of my mother that lasted my entire childhood.
There was no war in my hometown, but how I quietly and with no one’s knowledge I suffered nonetheless. Worse, this merely seemed “normal” to me as I knew no other way of life. In a sense, I was also a “war child.”
Still, memories are purified and bring back such cravings amid the disappointments that the words of this song evoke. I remember waiting at the bus stop in the seventh grade, and the book store on Main street in my hometown – and I want to go back in time to experience it again. I would give anything for this! I would only ask that I could bring with me a 3 x 5 card with the lessons of past 30 years so that as I relived the hell, I could somehow fix it and change my present outcome.
Once again, Keane is my muse and constant companion for deep meditation.
Like so many of the finest Keane songs, this one gripped hold of me and presented a puzzle with few clues as to the reason for the personal impact. Ostensibly it tells the emotional side of a civilian war, perhaps in a hometown, perhaps from an adult’s perspective as a child.
Perhaps I feel I bit guilty co-opting this message, for War Child, but perhaps my interpretation will resonate with others. For the past four years, culminating with the death of my mother a few weeks ago, I have really come to grips the extremes of the abuse I suffered growing up. I was bullied relentlessly at school – and then when I fled to come home – the endless emotional and physical rage and abuse of my mother that lasted my entire childhood.
There was no war in my hometown, but how I quietly and with no one’s knowledge I suffered nonetheless. Worse, this merely seemed “normal” to me as I knew no other way of life. In a sense, I was also a “war child.”
Still, memories are purified and bring back such cravings amid the disappointments that the words of this song evoke. I remember waiting at the bus stop in the seventh grade, and the book store on Main street in my hometown – and I want to go back in time to experience it again. I would give anything for this! I would only ask that I could bring with me a 3 x 5 card with the lessons of past 30 years so that as I relived the hell, I could somehow fix it and change my present outcome.
Once again, Keane is my muse and constant companion for deep meditation.