Welcome to the "Sadly Beautiful Song Series" wherein I, your trusted and much loved blogger, will select one song that rips my heart out because it is (you guessed it!) both sad & beautiful.
Batting lead-off we have my personal pick for the best anti-war song of the last 50 years. Perhaps you are thinking right now "Anti-war song?! - Oh yuck!" Please rest assured that this song is no ham-fisted, proselytizing political rant. It's actually quite elegant and has always struck me as a musical version of Stephen Crane's short novel The Red Badge Of Courage. And to this day, after probably some 100 listens or so, Mark Knopfler's glorious yet mournfully understated guitar playing still transforms my flesh into a field of geese.
So without further aideu here is:
"Brothers In Arms"
DIRE STRAITS
(original album version - recommended):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5JkHBC5lDs
(live with string quartet):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZRbBskloE
BROTHERS IN ARMS
(M. Knopfler)
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
"you got my soul
.sadly, beautiful"
.(p. westerberg)
.
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
"you got my soul
.sadly, beautiful"
.(p. westerberg)
.
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