That song is all about how the war was bad because it was working class people fighting and dying there, and not the sons of the rich and powerful. That's a great summation of the "pop" anti-war movement at the time: the war is bad because we're getting drafted. Very little or nothing about "oh hey this war is bad because we are committing tons of war crimes and atrocities at damn near the same level as the SS". Or even "hey maybe we have no business at all stopping a communist movement in another country when that's what their people want". Nope, all about US and how the war impact AMERICANS. And then when the war ended it was retroactively considered "bad" because we lost and because it made the veterans sad. God boomers suck.
Of course at the time there we plenty of folks who were anti-war based on solid principles. But what do you know, they happened to be leftists like the Black Panthers. Just another example of the left holding the torch for what is right while the rest of the country acts like fucking depraved assholes.
Edit: listening to the latest Chapo episode now, Matt just reminded me, once the draft went away the anti-war movement dried up.
WW1 antiwar songs had a lot more bite. Even the succdem ones.
"Ten million soldiers off to war who may never come home again
Ten million mothers hearts must break for the ones who died in vain
Head bowed down in sorrow, in her lonely years
I heard a mother struggle through her tears
" I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier
I brought him up to be my pride and joy
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?!""
It's a poem and not a song, but Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" never gets old to me. Every time I read it, it hits just as hard.
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8.8 percent died and 13.4 percent of Males wounded between ages 18 and 55.
More importantly the upper class was more affected (due to the whole "Eton spirit" thing. They lost over 20% of their alumni.) By the end of 1915 800 nobles were dead, and there were only about 3000 to begin with. 24 peers died, and 12 MPs who were heirs.
Lesson: hurt the upper and upper-middle classes and watch the sudden outpouring of humanity.
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Oh yeah, absolutely. Wages were up, people were beginning to not die of TB, Labour parties were getting power, and the unions were making progress on workers rights.
The suffering of The Great War utterly murdered a sort of utopian Aristo-Fabian alliance that was developing in England and a good chunk of Europe against capitalism. (Though Russia and Germany were probably too far gone, maybe not AH though.) WW1 and the flu basically ended the upper agrarian classes.
I'm more talking about the high art and the cultural superstructure. I can't imagine Lord of the Rings without WW1.
I don't simp aristos, they were monsters. But when they went down they went bravely and not without an admirable trait here or there. Cant say that about today.
Can you imagine Jeff Bezos dying with a sword in hand? Writing an art song about the passing of their world?
How did we get to these pissants being rulers of the world? These are our grand fucking foes!?
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That song's a new one for me, and it sure was heartbreaking.
Ivor Gurney's art songs often touch on his PTSD and war experience and they're haunting