War and other stories

I posted this link to a late-80’s performance of Bruce Springsteen covering the Edwin Starr classic “War” on Retro Chicken – my music only blog. Bruce and his band sound great (I wrote over on Retro Chicken that I am pretty sure he is with the E Street Band) and the video rocks – except for the last 5 seconds. Just as the song ends Bruce makes this pedantic statement about war being bad – like duh Bruce, obviously war is bad – but war isn’t going to end just because you don’t like it. The only way to end war, or any other social ill which plagues our society, is to stop pointing fingers and assigning blame and to stand up and take responsibility.

Incidentally – this is exactly the message of “War.” According to Edwin Starr, even though the song was seen as an anti-Vietnam anthem – that was not the message at all. It is actually about the evil of “war” between friends, family and neighbors – about the need to start looking inward and solve our personal problems as a means to change the planet – now that is a message.

October 15th, 2007 Politics