What's a good lesser-known anti-war song to cover?

December 14, 2004 7:50 PM

What's a good lesser-known anti-war song to cover? [+]
posted by drezdn to Media & Arts (61 answers total)

Most anything from Steve Earle's The Revolution Starts Now.
posted by mudpuppie at 7:52 PM on December 14, 2004

Response by poster: Some friends are producing a play and want local bands to cover anti-war songs as backing music. Since I'm an electronic artist, I'd really like something with an awesome hook, and that hasn't been done to death.
posted by drezdn at 7:53 PM on December 14, 2004

Not sure if it's what you're looking for exactly, but check out the Gulf War Song, by Moxy Fruvous.
posted by ArsncHeart at 7:58 PM on December 14, 2004

I second the Gulf War Song....There's "I don't want to be a hero" by Johnny Hates Jazz, but I'm not sure what would meet your "Good" requirement
posted by duck at 8:09 PM on December 14, 2004

It fails the well known test, but by only doing one chorus at the end and playing such that you can actually hear the lyrics, Ballboy's cover of Born in the USA is top.
posted by Flat Feet Pete at 8:13 PM on December 14, 2004

Everybody's Crying Mercy

or

Resist War (you can download it there, which I recommend whether you cover it or not)
posted by Robot Johnny at 8:15 PM on December 14, 2004

In addition to these fine recommendations, check out the songs listed in this post.
posted by onlyconnect at 8:15 PM on December 14, 2004

With the sneaking suspicion that none of these are even close to what you're looking for:

Stevie Wonder--Frontline
Mr. Lif--Earthcrusher
Fela Kuti--Unknown Soldier
Sun Ra--Nuclear War
Time Zone--World Destruction
Charles Mingus--Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me
posted by box at 8:18 PM on December 14, 2004

David Olney - 1917, sorta. Free mp3 download.
posted by kenko at 8:23 PM on December 14, 2004

Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore." Or, if you want catchy, "Draft Dodger Rag."

Or Donovan's "Universal Soldier."

I'm not sure what counts as "lesser-known." And I have no ideas how these would sound electronic, but I'd be interested to hear.
posted by rafter at 8:24 PM on December 14, 2004

Pete Seeger- Last Night I had the Strangest Dream
posted by crusiera at 8:26 PM on December 14, 2004

without knowing what kind of electronic music you play, I'll just take a stab at something that would probably translate well:
World War 3 by Melle Mel and the Furious Five MCs
posted by getupandgo at 8:28 PM on December 14, 2004

"The Bell," too (mp3). They do it a little in the recording already, but you could certainly jazz it up and make it less corny with your electronic skills.
posted by rafter at 8:29 PM on December 14, 2004

Awww, beat me to the Moxy Fruvous suggestion. Good call. But only if you have the people to do four-part harmony.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:30 PM on December 14, 2004

Offspring - JTehran always gives me the chills, for a skate-punk song. Recalls the ghost of the Dead Kennedys. (warning - link to a lyrics site, pop-ups may lurk for all I know)

What will you feel
Will you ever wonder
If the man that's in your sights
Ever kissed his girl goodbye

It does have a nice, arabic-sounding hook too.
posted by Jimbob at 8:33 PM on December 14, 2004

(sorry...Tehran even. No J involved)
posted by Jimbob at 8:33 PM on December 14, 2004

The Yo La Tengo version of Sun Ra's Nuclear War is really good and would probably work well.
posted by amandaudoff at 8:38 PM on December 14, 2004

JB Lenoir's "Vietnam Blues"
posted by greasy_skillet at 8:38 PM on December 14, 2004

Hard to say without knowing what style you're looking at, but you may want to check out some of the songs on Pink Floyd's The Final Cut. The Gunner's Dream, The Fletcher Memorial Home and Southampton Dock are all very good songs.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:40 PM on December 14, 2004

maybe more widely know than you'd like, but: marvin gaye - what's going on?
posted by juv3nal at 8:55 PM on December 14, 2004

Phil Ochs, "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore." Or, if you want catchy, "Draft Dodger Rag."

You can't forget Ochs' "Cops of the World" that has lyrics that sound like they could have been written about Iraq even though they were written fourty years ago.
posted by octothorpe at 8:55 PM on December 14, 2004

How about "Six Days" by DJ Shadow, fits the electronic theme (samples Colonel Bagshot's "Six Day War").

also second box's rec of "World Destruction," an incredibly powerful song.
posted by thirdparty at 9:02 PM on December 14, 2004

Mason Proffitt -- "Ballad of Eugene Pratt" or "Two Hangmen"
Uriah Heep -- "The Park"
CSNY -- "Find the Cost of Freedom" (maybe too well known)
Dire Straits -- "Brothers In Arms" (ditto)
posted by joaquim at 9:10 PM on December 14, 2004

For the holidays, there's Marvin Gaye's "I Want to Come Home for Christmas". I'm not positive it's "lesser known" but I'd never heard of it before picking up the Motown Christmas compilation.

It might be a little too specific to Vietnam, though. Which is to say, it's probably perfect for this Christmas...
posted by jimray at 9:12 PM on December 14, 2004

it's a longshot, but Culture Club's War Song is better than it sounds
posted by amberglow at 9:14 PM on December 14, 2004

you could use the internationale ...
posted by cadastral at 9:16 PM on December 14, 2004

Australian band Midnight Oil's song US Forces is very topical in the present climate I would say..
posted by mule at 9:20 PM on December 14, 2004

It may not be appropriate for your occasion, and a little hard to appreciate if you don't know at least some French, but Manau's Un Type Bien is very moving, I think.
posted by azazello at 9:33 PM on December 14, 2004

These are more about the lyrics than the music, but:
Territories by Rush
War by Jonatha Brooke
posted by willnot at 9:39 PM on December 14, 2004

MC Frontalot's Special Delivery! "I tried to go clean from protesting but I'm a recidivist/my government behaving with unlimited wickedness..."

I like Sage Francis's "Makeshift Patriot" too. These are hiphop songs, so they don't make great background songs, but perhaps your arrangement can fix that.
posted by equipoise at 9:50 PM on December 14, 2004

Rundgren's "Johnee Jingo," from his 1985 A Cappella.

And for that matter, "Liar," from his latest album, Liars, if you want to be more topical.
posted by kindall at 10:10 PM on December 14, 2004

Oh yeah, i'll second Rush's "Territories," good tune. "They shoot without shame, in the name of a piece of dirt." Was into that one big time in my college days.
posted by kindall at 10:12 PM on December 14, 2004

10K Maniacs, ``My Mother the War'' isn't done to death and has a catchy enough bass line.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:33 PM on December 14, 2004

It's kind of specific to south/central america, but I'm a huge fan of David Rodriguez's True Cross
posted by Clay201 at 11:35 PM on December 14, 2004

Everybody else is willing to throw out the "lesser known" criterion, so I'll do the same and say:

Bob Dylan - "Blowin in the Wind"
Crosby Stills Nash & Young - "Ohio"

and crusiera's suggestion (Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream) is good, although I like the Simon & Garfunkel version better.

You could also go with Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Or Country Joe and the Fish's "I feel like I'm fixin to die" - although that is completely anti-Viet Nam War.
posted by stovenator at 12:01 AM on December 15, 2004

Profit in Peace by Ocean Colour Scene is quite good.
posted by Navek Rednam at 1:28 AM on December 15, 2004

Phil Ochs has a lot of great songs. I'm partial to I Kill Therefore I Am. This song by Jim's Big Ego got a lot of play in the online world, but I'm sure a lot of other people haven't heard it and its lyrics are really about what's going on right now. Tom Lehrer is pretty hard to cover, but he's lyrically amazing. His stuff is a bit dated but still pretty great. Suggestion: Whos' Next or So Long Mom
posted by jessamyn at 2:02 AM on December 15, 2004

I'm the fourth person to mention Phil Ochs, but I want to suggest Is There Anybody Here.

Also, "I Ain't Marching Anymore" has an awesome eletric version as well as the traditional acoustic guitar version. I know where you can get a copy.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:43 AM on December 15, 2004

Try The Butcher's Tale by The Zombies. lyrics here
posted by tomble at 3:05 AM on December 15, 2004

Oh, hey... Bob Dylan's version of "John Brown" from the MTV Unplugged album. (And, of course, there's also Dylan's "Masters of War," but that's a bit too well known, isn't it?)
posted by Clay201 at 4:07 AM on December 15, 2004

Shipbuilding by Elvis Costello
posted by damnitkage at 4:58 AM on December 15, 2004

Johnny Cash - Drive On...

I remember one night,
Tex and me Rappelled in on a hot L.Z.
We had our 16's on rock and roll
But, with all that fire,
was scared and cold
We were crazy, we were wild
And I have seen the tiger smile
I spit in a bamboo viper's face
And I'd be dead , but by God's grace.

Drive on, don't mean nothin'
My children love me, but they don't understand
And I got a woman who knows her man
Drive on, don't mean nothin', drive on
posted by McGuillicuddy at 5:34 AM on December 15, 2004

Strike Up The Band, by George Gershwin. Stripped of its lyrics, It's become a jingoistic band march, which is ironic because it's actually a satirical anti-war song from a satirical anti-war musical. The lyrics include the line:
We're in a bigger, better war,
For your patriotic pastime--
We don't know what we're fighting for,
But we didn't know the last time!

Admittedly, many of the lyrics are seemingly pro-war, and only get their irony from the context of the play (which involves the US declaring war on Switzerland at the instigation of a cheese manufacturer), but if you sang the song in an ironic, grungy or electronic-y way, I think the irony would come through.

Equally ironic (but probably more dated) are Tom Lehrer's So Long Mom, I'm Off To Drop The Bomb ("Remember, mommie--I'm off to kill a commie"), We Will All Go Together When We Go ("We will all go simultaneous, when we all became uraneous..."), and "Send The Marines" ("They've got to be protected, and all their rights respected, until somebody we like can get elected.") You can find the lyrics and music in this book.
posted by yankeefog at 6:01 AM on December 15, 2004

"Vietnam" by the Minutemen is the funkiest anti-war song ever.
posted by saladin at 6:10 AM on December 15, 2004

The latest album from Greg Graffin and the Magic Thesaurus has two war protest songs, Let Them Eat War (free .mp3 download available from Epitaph records) and The Empire Strikes First (no free download, but I like it better).
We strike first!
And we're unrehearsed.
Here we go again
To stage the greatest show on heaven and earth
Come on, get your moneys worth.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 6:50 AM on December 15, 2004

There is some good stuff here, and it's all free for download as mp3.

[as mentioned here, to great acclaim]
posted by mds35 at 7:03 AM on December 15, 2004

Suicide is Painless, also known as the theme to M*A*S*H. The TV version is pretty cheesy, but it seems like you could do something with the movie version of the song.
posted by hootch at 7:23 AM on December 15, 2004

Bob Seger System's "2+2=?". One of the earliest and most explicitly anti-Vietnam rock songs of the 60's. And it's a killer rock song, too.
posted by jonmc at 7:27 AM on December 15, 2004

Eric Bogle's The Band Played Waltzing Matilda and Green Fields of France are beautiful and moving songs, if you don't mind going back to protest WWI.
posted by tdismukes at 7:33 AM on December 15, 2004

Eric Bogle's And the Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda':

Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead --
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more "Waltzing Matilda,"
All around the green bush far and free --
To hump tents and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more "Waltzing Matilda" for me.

The song's about the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during World War I, basically trench warfare between the ANZACs and the Turks, with the Turks enjoying home-field advantage (includes photos) on top of the cliffs and the ANZACs trying to attack from below. As one assessment put it, "the most successful operation of the campaign was the evacuation of the troops." There's a very good movie (one of Mel Gibson's first).
posted by kirkaracha at 7:46 AM on December 15, 2004

"When the World's at Peace", by the O'Jays. Predictable lyrics--but if you can match the Philly horn section, the delivery, the arrangements, you got it.
posted by gimonca at 7:56 AM on December 15, 2004

This should have some of what you're looking for. I am partial to The Jam's "Little Boy Soldiers", though if you are not in, say, a British group, some of lyrics may be off target.
posted by nimmpau at 8:13 AM on December 15, 2004

Steeleye Span did a fusion version of a traditional song called "Fighting for Strangers" which blends original work with "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". It's awesome - just a little vocal over percussion, mostly. Don't let the 'folk' page scare you -- they had a pretty crisp 70s-rock sound.

And you should definitely listen to the Phil Ochs tunes. I so wish he hadn't gone crazy and died. He was immensely talented and nobody wrote songs of social criticism any better than he did. And they sound good too.
posted by Miko at 8:25 AM on December 15, 2004

"Too Many Puppies" by Primus
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:33 AM on December 15, 2004

How about "War" by Edwin Starr? Or "Weapons of Mass Destruction" by Faithless?
posted by Lynsey at 11:46 AM on December 15, 2004

My (somewhat late) contribution to the Phil Ochs party is "One More Parade", which They Might Be Giants covered some time back. You might also want to look into Fad Gadget ("The Sheep Look Up", "Fireside Favourite") or The Sound ("New Dark Age", "Missiles"), though those songs do carry a bit of 80's baggage.

But if you want an anti-war song that'll get the audience shakin' what their momma gave 'em, Curtis Mayfield's "We Got To Have Peace" is just the ticket. (Unfortunately I was unable to find a site with lyrics that wouldn't make my browser barf...but that's what P2P is for, right?)
posted by Vervain at 12:59 PM on December 15, 2004

"(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love, And Understanding" or "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello, though they may both be a little more well-known than you'd like.

I'll second the recommendations for Culture Club's "War Song" and Time Zone's "World Destruction"
posted by SisterHavana at 2:04 PM on December 15, 2004

"Army Life" by the Exploited!
posted by punkrockrat at 5:37 PM on December 15, 2004

Lives in the Balance

The most covered and newest antiwar songs.
posted by ?! at 6:59 PM on December 15, 2004

I'll second And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda, particularily the Pogues' version from Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash. While you're there, check out A Pair of Brown Eyes, which is also an excellent anti-war song.
posted by Chrischris at 8:33 PM on December 15, 2004

Indeed, anything by Phil Ochs. "One More Parade" always gives me the chills, and is noteworthy for being written in 1961--one of the very first anti-Vietnam War folk songs. "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land" is certainly topical. And others not mentioned yet: "We Seek No Wider War," "The War is Over," and "Song of a Soldier" (somewhat more sympathetic to the grunts while condemning the leadership). "The Confession" could probably be adapted interestingly to be relevant.

Billy Bragg also has a few wonderful ones.
Like Soldiers Do
My Youngest Son Came Home Today
The Marching Song of the Covert Battalions would also be easy to adapt.
posted by hippugeek at 12:51 AM on December 16, 2004