10 | Apr | 2022 | willowdot21

Its Sunday and time Jim Adams Song Lyric Sunday the theme is Army, Soldier, War and was picked by Di at pensitivity101. Great choice Di.

My first choice was Army Dreamers written and performed by Kate Bush. In 1980 I was mum to two boys number three was not born yet. I was busy looking after the boys, I was working as a cleaner as it fit in well with the boys . Kate Bush was my hero of the day.

“Army Dreamers” is a 1980 song, the third and final single to be released from the album Never for Ever, by Kate Bush. It was a UK top 20 hit in October 1980.

“Army Dreamers” was released on 22 September 1980 and peaked at number 16 in the UK Singles Chart. The song is about the effects of war and about a mother who grieves for her young adult son, who was killed on military manoeuvres. Saddened by his unnecessary death, she wrestles with her guilt over what she could have done to prevent it. The song is a waltz, which marks a change to Bush’s previous singles. The version on the original single release is longer than on the album release. This version fades; whereas the single release has a dead ending (the version of the single from The Single File, however, fades like the album release).

The single includes two B-sides, “Delius” and “Passing Through Air”. “Delius” is Bush’s tribute to English composer Frederick Delius. The subtitle, “Song of Summer“, comes from one of Delius’s works, and from a BBC film Bush saw about the composer’s life. Again, it’s of note that the album version is different in that the previous track “Babooshka” segues into it, whereas the single B-side version begins unobscured. “Passing Through Air” is one of Bush’s earliest works—originally recorded in 1973 at David Gilmour’s studio, a few weeks after her 15th birthday.

The reference in the lyrics to “BFPO” refers to “British Forces Post Office“, the postal system for the British armed forces, who deliver the message: “Our little army boy is coming home, from BFPO.”.

“Army Dreamers” was one of 68 songs considered inappropriate for airplay by the BBC during the first Gulf War.

The music video opens on a closeup of Kate Bush, dressed in dark green camouflage, holding a child. She blinks in synchronisation with the song’s sampled gun cocks. The camera pulls out and shows that Bush has a white-haired child on her lap. The child walks off and returns in military combat uniform, and during the first pre-chorus, as Bush responds to her bandmates’ comments, the child grows up into a 20-year-old. Bush and several soldiers (two of whom, Bush included, have “KT8” or “KTB” stencilled on the butt of their rifles: “KTB” was a monogram used by Bush early in her career) make their way through woodland, amid explosions. As the song progresses, Bush reaches out for the child soldier, but he disappears. Finally, Bush is blown up.

Bush has stated that this video is one of the few examples of her work that completely satisfies her:

For me that’s the closest that I’ve got to a little bit of film. And it was very pleasing for me to watch the ideas I’d thought of actually working beautifully. Watching it on the screen. It really was a treat, that one. I think that’s the first time ever with anything I’ve done I can actually sit back and say “I liked that”. That’s the only thing. Everything else I can sit there going “Oh look at that, that’s out of place”. So I’m very pleased with that one, artistically. Kate Bush. Info. Wiki

B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Mammy’s hero

Our little army boy
Is coming home from B.F.P.O.
I’ve a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate mammy’s hero
Mourning in the aerodrome
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier

Tears o’er a tin box
Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn’t to know
Like a chicken with a fox
He couldn’t win the war with ego
Give the kid the pick of pips
And give him all your stripes and ribbons
Now he’s sitting in his hole
He might as well have buttons and bows

But he didn’t have the money for a guitar
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a politician)
But he never had a proper education
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a father)
But he never even made it to his twenties
What a waste
Army dreamers
Ooh, what a waste of
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Ooh, what a waste of all them
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers), oh

B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
No hard heroes
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.
Army dreamers
Mammy’s hero
B.F.P.O.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Kate Bush

Army Dreamers lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

*****

My brother was a Major in the army, he was also an RSM. Regimental Sargent Major. He retired as an RSM and was invited back into the army with a commission as a Major.

He was very upset kitting out ‘his boys’ for Afghanistan and Iraq with substandard gear, clothing and equipment not fit for purpose. He advised them to get as much gear as the could from the American troops out there.

“Everybody’s Gone to War” is a song written and performed by London-born, Jersey-raised singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot. The song, an anti-war protest, was written during the early stages of the Iraq War in 2003 and was composed on bass guitar by Pallot.

^{Originally distributed as a promotional CD in 2004, the song was commercially issued as the third single from Pallot’s second album, Fires, on 22 May 2006, reaching number 14 on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The accompanying music video features Pallot and other shoppers engaging in a ‘food fight’ in a busy supermarket. Directed by Marc Klasfeld, it received heavy rotation on British music channels with many people praising the humorous setting despite depicting a darker message within..} info Wiki

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I’ve got a friend
He’s a pure bred killing machine.

He said he’s waited his whole damn life for this

I knew him well when he was 17, now he’s a man who’ll be dead by Christmas
And

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

Don’t tell me it’s a worthy
Cause no cause could be so worthy

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

If God’s on our side then God is a joker,
Asleep on the job his children fall over,
Running out through the door and straight to the sky,
I don’t want to die.

For every man who wants to rule the world,
There’ll be a man who just wants to be free,
What do we learn but what should not be learned,
Too late to find the cure for this disease

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

I, I-I, I

I, I-I, I
Don’t want to die

I-I don’t want to die

So, everybody’s gone to war
But we don’t know what we’re fighting for,

If love is a drug I guess we’re all sober,
If hope is a song I guess it’s all over,
How to have faith when faith is a crime,
I don’t want to die

I, I-I, I
I, I-I, I
Don’t want to die

I-I don’t want to die

I’ve got a friend, he’s a pure bred killing machine,
I think he might be dead by
Christmas.

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Nerina Pallot

*****

Emma Nadine Stevens (born 4 May 1986) is an English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, based in Guildford, Surrey, England. She achieved mainstream success with her single “Riptide” from her first album Enchanted, which was featured as iTunes Single of the Week in October 2013 and had over 150,000 downloads. She describes her music as “sparkly folk pop”. Info Wiki

“Keep the Home-Fires Burning (Till the Boys Come Home)” is a British patriotic First World War song composed in 1914 by Ivor Novello with words by Lena Guilbert Ford (whose middle name was sometimes printed as “Gilbert”).

The song was published first as “‘Till the Boys Come Home” on 8 October 1914 by Ascherberg, Hopwood and Crew Ltd. in London. A new edition was printed in 1915 with the name “Keep the Home-Fires Burning”. The song became very popular in the United Kingdom during the war, along with “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary“.^{[citation needed]}

James F. Harrison recorded “Keep the Home-Fires Burning” in 1915, as did Stanley Kirkby in 1916. Another popular recording was sung by tenor John McCormack in 1917, who was also the first to record “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” in 1914. (See External links below to hear these recordings of “Keep the Home-Fires Burning”.) Other versions include one by Frederick J. Wheeler and one by the duet Reed Miller & Frederick Wheeler.

There is a misconception that Ivor Novello’s mother wrote the lyrics for the song (propagated—for example—by patter in recorded performances of British musical comedy duo Hinge and Bracket) but Lena Ford (an American) was a friend and collaborator of Novello, not a blood relation.

The opening of the melody bears a resemblance to Gustav Holst’s setting of the Christmas Carol “In the Bleak Midwinter“. Info Wiki.

******

They were summoned from the hillside
They were called in from the glen,
And the country found them ready
At the stirring call for men.
Let no tears add to their hardships
As the soldiers pass along,
And although your heart is breaking
Make it sing this cheery song

Keep the Home Fires Burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of home.
There’s a silver lining
Through the dark clouds shining,
Turn the dark cloud inside out
‘Til the boys come home.

Overseas there came a pleading,
“Help a nation in distress.”
And we gave our glorious laddies
Honour bade us do no less,
For no gallant son of freedom
To a tyrant’s yoke should bend,
And a noble heart must answer
To the sacred call of “Friend.”

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Ivor Novello / Lena Guilbert Ford

Finally a tribute to the Ukraine’s valiant soldiers and people who are at War.