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From: spt1@ukc.ac.uk (S.P.Thomas)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Subject: Re: Social Issues in Kate's Songs
Message-ID: <220@eagle.ukc.ac.uk>
Date: 4 Jan 92 13:14:26 GMT
References: <01GEXBEY0TCG9I78H5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Reply-To: spt1@ukc.ac.uk (Stephen Thomas)
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.
Lines: 37


In article <01GEXBEY0TCG9I78H5@csc.canterbury.ac.nz> POLS051@cantva.canterbury.ac.nz writes:
>- "Army Dreamers", "Experiment IV", and "Pull out the Pin" are obviously 
>anti-military songs.

Personally, I think this is very much an oversimplication.  "Army Dreamers"
is primarily about a mother's grief at losing her child to empty dreams
of glory.  The lyrics convey (to me, at least) no blame on the military
which filled the young person with these dreams.  Just grief and regret
for a wasted life.

"Experiment IV" is a better candidate, but to say that this is an anti-military
song is perhaps missing the point, even so.  The song is mainly about the
perversion of beauty into evil.  However, as it is the military who are
sponsoring this perversion, and the lyrics contain an implicit resentment
of them because of this, then in this way could the song be anti-military.

"Pull Out The Pin" works on a very personal level.  It is about a soldier
realising that if he intends to live, he will have to kill the other guy
threatening him.  There seems to be a curious ambivalence in the lyrics -
sometimes our soldier is reviling his enemy as an object of contempt,
yet at other times is understanding that the person is only a soldier too,
with a family, etc.  In the end, though, he *is* the enemy, and so must
die, in order for our soldier to live.  There seems to be no agonising
over this - indeed, the necessity is stark.  I don't think this song
is anti-military - it merely uses a military situation to convey the
necessity of choosing for yourself in a life/death situation, because
our soldier loves life.

>Andrew Hoy,
>Christchurch, NEW ZEALAND.

Stephen
--
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