R&B

Er dette årets mest følsomme låt?

Published

9 år ago

12. november 2014

Arkiv

Når de unike engelske artistene, Grammy og Brit Award vinnende Joss Stone, vokal (27) og gitarlegenden Jeff Beck (70) i år gikk sammen om å utgi årets offisielle Poppy Appeal single, så valgte de å spille inn en unik coverversjon av den legendariske låta «?No Man?s Land (Green Fields of France)». Låta ble skrevet i 1976 av den skotsk fødte folk singer-songwriter Eric Bogle. Eric Bogle som emigrerte til Australia i 1969, er kjent for å mange av sine låter som har tema med fokus på det nytteløse og tap av menneskeliv i krig. Poppy Appeal som er en stor og viktig hjelpeorganisasjon for britiske veteraner har hvert år en årlige appell for å skaffe midler for essensielt velferdsarbeid for tjeneste menn og kvinner, veteraner og deres familier. Utgivelse av singelen «No Man`s Land (Green Fields Of France)» har en nydelig tekst som reflektere over graven til en ung mann (Willie McBride) som døde under første verdenskrig og refererer også chorus til to kjente stykker av militærmusikk, «The Last Post» og «The Flowers of the Forest». All inntekt av singelen går selvsagt i sin helhet til hjelpeorganisasjonen Poppy Appeal.

?The song is about a soldier, Willie McBride, but when we started looking into who Willie was, we found no less than three men that it could have been – then we realised that finding him was not actually as important as what he and this song stand for, peace and the sacrifice made by so many.? – Joss Stone

Tekst:

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,

Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?

And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,

I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.

And I see by your gravestone you were only 19

When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,

Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean

Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

cho: Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?

Did the rifles fir o’er you as they lowered you down?

Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?

Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind

In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?

And, though you died back in 1916,

To that loyal heart are you always 19?

Or are you a stranger without even a name,

Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,

In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,

And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;

The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.

The trenches have vanished long under the plow;

No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land

The countless white crosses in mute witness stand

To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man.

And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can’t help but wonder, now Willie McBride,

Do all those who lie here know why they died?

Did you really believe them when they told you «The Cause?»

Did you really believe that this war would end wars?

Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame

The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,

For Willie McBride, it all happened again,

And again, and again, and again, and again.