In honor of Veterans Day, I give you Pink Floyd's "When the Tigers Broke Free"

[Downtown Hound]

One of the best anti-war songs ever written. I love this song because it both criticizes war and the mentality behind it while honoring a loved one lost to combat.

For those of you that have never seen "The Wall" or maybe don't know much about Pink Floyd, Roger Water's father was killed in the battle of Anzio when Roger was only five months old. Waters would later find some of his father's memorabilia when he was a child, and thus you have this song. It's him singing very sadly about the father he never knew while going through his stuff and trying on his uniform. It's also very critical of the military decisions that led to his death as well as the empty gesture made by the government to acknowledge his sacrifice.

I wouldn't say this is my favorite song or even antiwar song, but few songs have ever made tears come out of my eyes the way this one did the first time I heard it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biAtdDJv0t0



It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in black 'forty four.
When the forward commander
Was told to sit tight
When he asked that his men be withdrawn.
And the Generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
The enemy tanks for a while.
And the Anzio bridgehead
Was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives.

And kind old King George
Sent Mother a note
When he heard that father was gone.
It was, I recall,
In the form of a scroll,
With gold leaf and all.
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away.
And my eyes still grow damp to remember
His Majesty signed
With his own rubber stamp.

It was dark all around.
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free.
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company C.
They were all left behind,
Most of them dead,
The rest of them dying.
And that's how the High Command
Took my daddy from me.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Waters has a lot of good anti-war stuff! I also love this Wilfred Owen poem.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him, thy son.

Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,

A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.


But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

[Orrex]

2. Wilfred Owen is amazing

Dulce et Decorum Est is one of my all-time favorites.

[Parche]

4. Not Now John

We got to get on with the film show..........:bounce: :hi:

[Downtown Hound]

5. That's a great one too. n/t

[Orrex]

3. That may be Waters' finest lyrical work IMO

We hear it very faintly foreshadowed in Us and Them and revisted on most of The Final Cut.

Damn good stuff.

[Swede]

6. Bring the boys back home

ANd Vera were also anti war.

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?
Does anybody else here
Feel the way I do?

Bring the boys back home.
Bring the boys back home.
Don't leave the children on their own, no, no.
Bring the boys back home.


http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4pdHMl6T5kY