Back in 2004 and with the London march against the invasion of Iraq still fresh in my mind, I made an approach to UK music organisation Peace Not War (PNW), to offer them a track for their then pending 'Volume Two' of pro-peace/anti-war music. Upon informing one of the founders of the project that I was living in Japan, he asked me if I could help them to get their CDs some exposure over there.
Although I was based in Tokyo at the time, I'd spent most of my free time travelling around the country and had no contacts in either the Japanese music industry or peace movement. Reluctant to even consider the idea at first, so daunting a task did it seem, I shelved the idea for some time.
The Control K tune that I offered never did end up on one of their CDs, but I did get rather more deeply involved with them instead. His request ultimately seemed too good an opportunity for combining two of my interests (music and peace) and building a new network in my adopted country to turn down. A few months later, I got started on what was to become Peace Not War Japan (PNWJ), an organisation that has continued following my departure from the country.
By the time that the first PNWJ CD was released, I already had my own band (Shelf Life), who performed covers of rock 'n' roll standards in a local bar. When rumour filtered through the PNW network that London was thinking of producing a Volume Three, I went to the band and suggested that we should write a song for it - one that we could really pour our efforts into and make too good for them to turn down. My songwriting partner Cheryo and I set ourselves the task of writing a new 'peace anthem'.
In many of my previous sets of lyrics, I'd tended to take the Dylanesque route of using obscure imagery to conjure up word pictures. If this new song was going to have a chance of sticking in peoples' minds, I was going to have to keep things simpler this time around. I kept my eyes open for scraps of lines that could fit in, or be adapted, to a simple and effective anthemic song for peace. We were aiming along the lines of 'Hey Jude' or 'We Are The World' (very popular in Japan) in terms of hooks and build.
The opening line was borrowed from Atticus Finch (or Harper Lee, to be more precise) in 'To Kill A Mockingbird', one of fiction's great lawyers. The next line, added myself, was on the same theme and encourages looking at a situation from another person's perspective. One of the benefits to an independent, unaffiliated third party attempting to resolve a conflict between two sides (as, for example, Norway has tried to do with different factions in the Sri Lankan civil war) is that they can bring an approach that takes both points of view into account. War and conflict is almost never one-sided. The song asks listeners to think about things from the other side too.
As I became more involved with the Japanese peace movement, I met many interesting and sometimes extremely brave people that in my line as an English Teacher in suburban Tokyo I would never have had an opportunity to do. One such person, whom this song was mostly inspired by, was a young Iraqi engineer that I went to see speak and later shared a meal with. I'd never met somebody from that devastated and desperate country before and was eager to hear his story, particularly when the Western media so dehumanises the inhabitants of Iraq.
His was a tale that was tough to swallow, yet also deeply inspiring and gave me a little more faith in the human spirit to overcome the worst possible things that can be thrown at it. According to him, life under Saddam wasn't great but it did have its positive aspects too. Criticism of Hussein was a strict no-go, but if you came from a poor background (as he did), you were entitled to a free University education and Iraq's universities were considered to be amongst the best in the Middle East. He got himself an engineering degree. Then, the invasion of 2003 came and like all young Iraqi men, he got the call-up to fight (not an option he could refuse).
During the early days of the occupation/insurgency (delete according to perspective), he went through all manner of horrors - the deaths of many of his friends and family, kidnap and capture by jihadists, imprisonment by US forces, and the destruction of most of his town. It would seem natural for someone who went through such things to be filled with hatred for the causes of such things and initially he was. However, something happened that put him on a different path.
When some Japanese journalists were captured in Iraq by 'al-Qaeda', he was held captive with them. The female journalist he was with encouraged him to look the situation from other perspectives and to think more about peace than revenge, an approach he took on board. Such can be the power of words and talking things through. This story inspired the second verse of the song.
In the chorus, the line 'I am what I am...' was borrowed from the Ubuntu free operating system, whose name comes from the Zulu aphorism which articulates a basic respect and compassion for others. The operating system aims to 'underpin the concept of an open society', which seemed like a suitable sentiment for the song and also sat quite comfortably with Gandhi's famous line about 'an eye for an eye' in this song.
The other chorus lines of 'we are the ones...' was picked up from New Internationalist magazine, in a special issue on positive stories from the Majority World. It's a line I've seen used much more widely in recent times too. The verse about the 'silence of our friends' was adapted from a quote by that other famous peacemaker, Martin Luther King.
To seek 'peace of mind' is, I believe, inherent in most people. However, it is our fears and suspicions that lead us to build walls around us rather than bridges between us. These only serve to enforce differences between people rather than encouraging a search for similarities.
'Peace Not War: Volume Three' didn't happen in the end, and PNW themselves seem to be largely inactive these days. Never mind, the potential of being on that album prompted me to write the song that I am probably most proud of.
In the spirit of the song, when the band perform it live we usually invite members of the audience or other bands that we play with to come on stage and join in with the chorus. We also made a promo video to go with it too, my first one, where an audience does the same thing. The video was certainly a lot of fun to make, although it did give me a bit of an idea of the amount of time that people who do this kind of thing for a living have to spend waiting around! The video can be seen at the top of this posting.
The song, titled 'Endgame' in reference to the games that world powers play with peoples lives in their war-making, ended up as the final track on our first CD release 'Best Before End'. It is available for download through
, as a single track or as part of the album.
Peace out.
Although I was based in Tokyo at the time, I'd spent most of my free time travelling around the country and had no contacts in either the Japanese music industry or peace movement. Reluctant to even consider the idea at first, so daunting a task did it seem, I shelved the idea for some time.
The Control K tune that I offered never did end up on one of their CDs, but I did get rather more deeply involved with them instead. His request ultimately seemed too good an opportunity for combining two of my interests (music and peace) and building a new network in my adopted country to turn down. A few months later, I got started on what was to become Peace Not War Japan (PNWJ), an organisation that has continued following my departure from the country.
By the time that the first PNWJ CD was released, I already had my own band (Shelf Life), who performed covers of rock 'n' roll standards in a local bar. When rumour filtered through the PNW network that London was thinking of producing a Volume Three, I went to the band and suggested that we should write a song for it - one that we could really pour our efforts into and make too good for them to turn down. My songwriting partner Cheryo and I set ourselves the task of writing a new 'peace anthem'.
In many of my previous sets of lyrics, I'd tended to take the Dylanesque route of using obscure imagery to conjure up word pictures. If this new song was going to have a chance of sticking in peoples' minds, I was going to have to keep things simpler this time around. I kept my eyes open for scraps of lines that could fit in, or be adapted, to a simple and effective anthemic song for peace. We were aiming along the lines of 'Hey Jude' or 'We Are The World' (very popular in Japan) in terms of hooks and build.
The opening line was borrowed from Atticus Finch (or Harper Lee, to be more precise) in 'To Kill A Mockingbird', one of fiction's great lawyers. The next line, added myself, was on the same theme and encourages looking at a situation from another person's perspective. One of the benefits to an independent, unaffiliated third party attempting to resolve a conflict between two sides (as, for example, Norway has tried to do with different factions in the Sri Lankan civil war) is that they can bring an approach that takes both points of view into account. War and conflict is almost never one-sided. The song asks listeners to think about things from the other side too.
As I became more involved with the Japanese peace movement, I met many interesting and sometimes extremely brave people that in my line as an English Teacher in suburban Tokyo I would never have had an opportunity to do. One such person, whom this song was mostly inspired by, was a young Iraqi engineer that I went to see speak and later shared a meal with. I'd never met somebody from that devastated and desperate country before and was eager to hear his story, particularly when the Western media so dehumanises the inhabitants of Iraq.
His was a tale that was tough to swallow, yet also deeply inspiring and gave me a little more faith in the human spirit to overcome the worst possible things that can be thrown at it. According to him, life under Saddam wasn't great but it did have its positive aspects too. Criticism of Hussein was a strict no-go, but if you came from a poor background (as he did), you were entitled to a free University education and Iraq's universities were considered to be amongst the best in the Middle East. He got himself an engineering degree. Then, the invasion of 2003 came and like all young Iraqi men, he got the call-up to fight (not an option he could refuse).
During the early days of the occupation/insurgency (delete according to perspective), he went through all manner of horrors - the deaths of many of his friends and family, kidnap and capture by jihadists, imprisonment by US forces, and the destruction of most of his town. It would seem natural for someone who went through such things to be filled with hatred for the causes of such things and initially he was. However, something happened that put him on a different path.
When some Japanese journalists were captured in Iraq by 'al-Qaeda', he was held captive with them. The female journalist he was with encouraged him to look the situation from other perspectives and to think more about peace than revenge, an approach he took on board. Such can be the power of words and talking things through. This story inspired the second verse of the song.
In the chorus, the line 'I am what I am...' was borrowed from the Ubuntu free operating system, whose name comes from the Zulu aphorism which articulates a basic respect and compassion for others. The operating system aims to 'underpin the concept of an open society', which seemed like a suitable sentiment for the song and also sat quite comfortably with Gandhi's famous line about 'an eye for an eye' in this song.
The other chorus lines of 'we are the ones...' was picked up from New Internationalist magazine, in a special issue on positive stories from the Majority World. It's a line I've seen used much more widely in recent times too. The verse about the 'silence of our friends' was adapted from a quote by that other famous peacemaker, Martin Luther King.
To seek 'peace of mind' is, I believe, inherent in most people. However, it is our fears and suspicions that lead us to build walls around us rather than bridges between us. These only serve to enforce differences between people rather than encouraging a search for similarities.
'Peace Not War: Volume Three' didn't happen in the end, and PNW themselves seem to be largely inactive these days. Never mind, the potential of being on that album prompted me to write the song that I am probably most proud of.
In the spirit of the song, when the band perform it live we usually invite members of the audience or other bands that we play with to come on stage and join in with the chorus. We also made a promo video to go with it too, my first one, where an audience does the same thing. The video was certainly a lot of fun to make, although it did give me a bit of an idea of the amount of time that people who do this kind of thing for a living have to spend waiting around! The video can be seen at the top of this posting.
The song, titled 'Endgame' in reference to the games that world powers play with peoples lives in their war-making, ended up as the final track on our first CD release 'Best Before End'. It is available for download through
, as a single track or as part of the album.Peace out.
Endgame
You'll never know a man,
Until you step into his shoes.
Won't see what's goin' on,
Unless you look through another's eyes.
A friend of mine,
Told me of soldiers on his streets.
Home and family gone,
Yet he learned not to hate.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
An eye for an eye,
Will make the whole world blind – so blind.
We all seek,
Yet rarely find our peace of mind.
We're still building walls,
We should be building bridges instead.
In the end,
It's not the words of our enemies,
We remember,
But the silence of our friends.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
We are the ones,
That we've been waiting for – so long.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
We are the ones,
That we've been waiting for – so long.
(You'll never know)
(Without standing in his shoes)
(You'll never see)
(Better look through another's eyes)
(Yes, he told me)
('Bout the soldiers on his streets)
(His family was gone)
(He turned his hate around)
(All looking for)
(That little peace of mind)
(Newer, higher walls)
(But a bridge brings us together)
(It's not the words)
(Of our enemies that last)
(But the silence)
(Of our friends, so shout it loud)
You'll never know a man,
Until you step into his shoes.
Won't see what's goin' on,
Unless you look through another's eyes.
A friend of mine,
Told me of soldiers on his streets.
Home and family gone,
Yet he learned not to hate.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
An eye for an eye,
Will make the whole world blind – so blind.
We all seek,
Yet rarely find our peace of mind.
We're still building walls,
We should be building bridges instead.
In the end,
It's not the words of our enemies,
We remember,
But the silence of our friends.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
We are the ones,
That we've been waiting for – so long.
I am what I am,
Because of who we all are.
We are the ones,
That we've been waiting for – so long.
(You'll never know)
(Without standing in his shoes)
(You'll never see)
(Better look through another's eyes)
(Yes, he told me)
('Bout the soldiers on his streets)
(His family was gone)
(He turned his hate around)
(All looking for)
(That little peace of mind)
(Newer, higher walls)
(But a bridge brings us together)
(It's not the words)
(Of our enemies that last)
(But the silence)
(Of our friends, so shout it loud)
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