WAR DITTY (3 YEARS & STILL GOING STRONG)

Victory, he says after three years of the War of Liberation. Sounds like something out of Milan Kundera's imagination. Been a while since I read The Quiet American by Graham Greene. Maybe time to dust those old paperbacks off.

In the last few years I've probably amounted a considerable archive of post 9-11 and Iraq War II music commentary. But a song Tom sent this week from NYC on one of his mix CDs Alabama Orphan Motorway is as exact about the present as any of those shattering tracks by DJ /Rupture and Mutamassik that collide middle eastern melodrama with hardcore junglist breaks and hip hop. It's been out a while I think (from the evidence of some google action--I know I'm behind the times) but this garage punk tune 'Monster Hospital' by Metric evokes the torture cells and 'extraordinary renditions' of Bush Jnr Inc. It replaces the Bobby Fuller Four's 'I Fought The Law' and it's coda of 'And the law won' with a female voice repeating 'I fought the war and the war won'. The Clash's straight cover of Fuller's tune is forgotten. Check out the lyrics below. Is Daddy Warbucks George Bush or the Enron bosses or Halliburton Cheney? Don't know Annie: The Musical well enough to hazard a more studied guess. God is also mentioned, since as Bobby Dylan noted forty plus years ago, He's on OUR side. That chorus repeated again and again sums up my sense of failure--is the anti-war movement now stymied by apathy? Are people so bored with the war in Iraq that only talk of civil war, torture photos and video beheadings can animate the tele-audience from the now routine violence. For this week, 'Monster Hospital' is 'Blitzkrieg Bop'. Another one to play on The Basement. You can download the ringtone somewhere. I've just got the CD track on repeat. Thank you for the guitar feedback. We need more power chords. Power Pop's Not Dead.

Metric 'Monster Hospital'

Bam shika bam shika boom boom bom
sha wang sha wang bam-------------not boom
sha wang sha wang boom
Bam shika bam shika boom boom boom
sha wang sha wang boom

Monster Hospital, can you please release me?
You hold my hands down, I've been bad.
You hold my arms down, I've been bad.
I've been bad, I've been bad.

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
but the war won

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won

Monster Movie, Daddy Warbucks up against Bobby Fuller
And he beat him hands down
lead in his head
they put a little lead in, in his head

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
but the war won

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
but the war won't stop for the love of God.

I fought the war
I fought the war but the war won

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God

I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God

I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God

I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won

I fought the war
I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God

I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won't stop for the love of God

I fought the war
I fought the war
But the war won!