Here’s an offering of peaceful songs, following the personal and family histories that have been shared over on RR this weekend. Please feel free to add your own in the Comments. Peace songs don’t have to be quiet, indeed the stories over on RR remind us that there is a great deal to be angry about. I’ve tended towards the ‘peaceful’ peace songs here.
Curtis Mayfield – We Got To Have Peace
Captain Sensible – Glad It’s All Over
Toots and the Maytals – Peace Perfect Peace
McCoy Tyner – Search for Peace
DP – very nice. Captain Sensible is totally new to me. Need to check him out. In the movie Coming Home the absolutely most powerful moment is when the Bruce Dern character is about to walk into the sea & this plays. The concept of war is a language untranslatable except to those who’ve had to wage it. those back home, even their loved ones, lack the frame of reference to understand even if they tried. Somehow this song brings that feeling home & I can barely give it a listen without tearing up.
That was me says fintan.
That does bring home the ‘untranslatable’ aspect doesn’t it, I can see how that would work in a film. Lovely song, and I wanted more of the bass that just comes in on the fade-out.
PS – Captain Sensible was a one-off, a member of The Damned (who had a foot in punk and, being produced by Nick Lowe, a foot in pub rock). His other hit singles were a version of “Happy Talk” from South Pacific, and a rap called “Wot” which illustrates an almost Pinteresque failure of humans to communicate. His “Nice Cup Of Tea” has been nominated over on RR, I need to listen to that.
Seems that LittleRiver liked it too !
Yes She did ! ! !
We must try and encourage here to join us here more often.
I loved it too ! ! !
Aw, shhhhweet pic! More an anti-war song than a peace song perhaps, but this is maybe my favourite track from an almost* perfect album:
Or there’s always their take on Peace Train.
*City of Angels has never done much for me.
I like this, a band I’ve heard of but know nothing about. Anti-war songs are certainly within any rules this thread might have, I’m not going to start a fight about it…
I put a Joe Pug post up on tincanland, with a three-song playlist. He’s writing the best anti-war songs since Dylan. http://t.co/H02GDCU7
Thanks tinny, I’ve popped over to Tincanland; Joe Pug does indeed write a good lyric.
I’ve got plenty of anti-war songs of course that but I think this could be described as a peace song
Action Pact – Human Beings
“How can we fight this fear of each other”
Still fits now as long as you ignore the odd cold war reference
Pedant’s corner – “How can we BREAK this fear of each other”
Shouldn’t that be pedants’ corner – unless it’s only one lonely pedant in a corner ?
unless it’s only one lonely pedant in a corner ?
They usually are
Thanks wyngatecarpenter. Exactly the connection between racism, fear and war. Good noisy peace song with the bonus of being able to understand the words !
I like this one. Bobby Darin was a staunch anti-racist and anti-war
I like your list, too
Thanks Mitch, there’s anti-greed in there too. I like the verse about having a little fenced-off place fot the warmongers to fight amongst themselves. Of course ‘Splish Splash’ is a peace song too, you could never start a war with that sort of party going on!
Or when just wearing a bath-towel
A close reading of the lyrics suggests he was wearing a bath towel (possibly wet from jumping back in the bath) and his dancing shoes.
He put the dancing shoes on later…..however, still not exactly battle dress!
Well done, Daddypig. And a nice bunny.
I’ve nothing to add to my uncle’s story, but here’s Tom Paxton, and “Peace Will Come:
Thanks Ali, I enjoy a little peaceful folk harmonising.
if only….
That was lovely.
That’s great, thanks severin. I was always put off by not liking their attempt at “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. But that’s a haunting song.
Beautiful post, DP, and lovely playlist! This is a good topic.
My first thought was The Day After Tomorrow, by Tom Waits, but I’ll have to think on it a bit, and get back.
This is a beauty, too. More anti-war than about peace.
Makes me weep!
Both beauties as you say. Great singers and writers. I hadn’t heard that side of Tom Waits before at all. As fintan says, it probably is untranslatable if one has never experienced it, but that’s a damn good try.
That was a lovely playlist, DP. I can’t think of anything apart from the obvious off the top of my head, so i’ll have to give it a think.
Ok, this one showed up in my head this morning. It should do until i think of another. So should the second one, which is a bit more generic for the topic.
Lovely, both of those are truly speaking peace unto the nations, and the “All You Need Is Love” quote at the end of Ziggy’s links them nicely. Ziggy is certainly a lover not a fighter, even down to how he gracefully manoevres his guitar prior to embracing his lady. George Harrison is maybe a little under-rated as a guitar player and solo artist, his solos and fills were never showy and always melodic.
DP – George my favorite Beatle. Wonderful guitar player, gorgeous voice.
These all lovely and great songs ! ! ! And also the songs posted by everyone ! ! !
I would like to share a Japanese antiwar song. It is called “Dream of the Nighthawk” and is by the group Do As Infinity
The song tells the story of a pilot in a Night Hawk bomber and his feelings and then he is shot and unites in death with the victims of his bombing.
It is a very sad song……..
Some of the words are:
ikitoshi ikeru mono subete
onaji iro shinku no chi de
inochi o sodateru
donna seigi o kazashite mo
nagarederu shinku no chi o
tomerare wa shinai
yume o miteta nagai yume o
nagai yume o nagai yume o
In English this is:
From all living things
The same scarlet blood flows,
bearing life in every precious drop
No matter what flag of justice we clothe ourselves in,
The blood that pours forth can’t be persuaded to stop
I had… A dream… A long dream…
A long dream… A long dream…
Dream Of The Night Hawk – Do As Infitinity
Thank you Sakura. Good song. It’s true that warfare seems to rely on the setting up of false differences between people. Your post about the Ryukyu Islands reminded me of this book review about the people that found themselves between (or part of) Germany and the Soviet Union between 1930-45. It’s harrowing just reading the review, I’ve yet to read the book. The industrial scale of the killing seemed to rely on dehumanising ‘differences’ and categories such as “Jewish” or “kulak”. As the reviewer and author say, The Nazi and Soviet regimes turned people into numbers. “It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people.”
This . . .
Knockout! I even quite liked Donovan’s cover of it.
I even quite like Glen Campbell’s…
Thanks Webcore, she puts it very well indeed, and as Mitch and bish say, even lesser versions pack a punch (if that’s not too inappropriate a metaphor).
Actually I think I posted this one before (did we do Dylan covers once?) But it is an antiwar song and quite peaceful, but really sad.
Angela Akai – Knocking On Heavens Door.
Nice one. I still like Bob the best, but we can have both !
Dance, children, dance for peace….
Can’t argue with that ! What a strange video, with all the camp dressing up and uniformed eroticism thrown in to the mixture.
Just to add that Pink Bunny was mine, but is now my little girl’s (so I had to take her badge off). My brothers found the badge on Portobello Market in 1978, at the height of Rock Against Racism and rebel badge-wearing, when there was a badge for every hobby-based and minority-grouping to wear against the Nazis. I suspect the badge was intended to take the piss, little did they know it would be adopted by an actual pink bunny.
She’s now found happiness with another pink bunny that someone gave to my daughter, and they have a family of little bunnies. Sometimes Emma says they’re both Mummy Bunnies, other times she decides one of them is Daddy Bunny. Peace, love and diversity !
One of the funniest badges I saw said “Bermondsey Bank Robbers Against The Nazis”. I suspect the wearer had a badge making machine and had done it himself – he looked the part ,though!
Perhaps he asked a favour that couldn’t easily be refused, from someone else with a badge-making machine ?
A bit late but have you ever come across this book? Might be one for your children when they’re older?
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/40911
They like The Tiger Who Came To Tea, we read it last night in fact. I’d heard of …Pink Rabbit but not read it. Thanks for the reminder, they start on history quite young these days.
Not one of his best efforts, but still…TP&TH were shocked when, returning from their European tour in 1992, they found themselves landing in a city on fire. The police officers who had attacked Rodney King had been acquitted and rioting had broken out in LA.
Peace In LA by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
I like that, a good feel to it that fits the message just right. As Toots says, I cry for peace, in this neighbourhood. Thanks TFD, especially finding time to post while you’re between homes.
Thanks everyone for posting these. I’ve said plenty, but I just need to add Brinsley Schwarz with the 1974 original of (What’s So Funny) ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding, Nick Lowe composing and singing.
Great band. Great song.
Absolutely. They do mellower versions in their middle-age…
here are Nick & Elvis
Thank you Shane, I didn’t know that song and I can’t think of any with lyrics that put it so well. He never makes statements about how we take things for granted, or that people in wartime yearn for simple everyday things, but he leaves us in no doubt.