“For Someone’s Child” [video]
HERE’S A VIDEO of “For Someone’s Child”, a song from my latest album, “The Key”. It was just made by staff of The Liberty Beacon as they resonated with its message about child victims of war. It is a requiem for every child who has been killed or maimed in conflicts around the world. I wrote the original version in Barcelona in April 2003 after the “Shock & Awe” US bombing campaign on Baghdad, which initiated the gratuitous genocide and deliberate destabilisation of Iraq. I have since updated the lyrics and added a vocal bridge. Note that it is in the key of E major to give a glimmer of hope. Click below to listen.
(Click on the link below the video to read the lyrics)
“That’s someone’s child”, she cried — I sighed,
his life lay broken on the ground.
The man who shot him down just smiled,
beguiled by his amazing aim.
How can you go back home to show
your face to all those lively children of your own?
He looked into the air — that stare
was where there once had been a smile.
A woman sat alone nearby
bled dry by grief and mother’s pain.
She wondered why he searched the sky
with those warm eyes she’d known so well from birth.
A shot sent to the head — instead of life
he’s buried in the earth.
They’ve dug a six-foot hole to hide
their crime so all the world won’t know.
So much to give, no more to live;
“It’s all in the name of freedom”, so they said.
I dream of fields full
of Bluebells and grain.
Flowers blow in waves on the breeze.
If we could harvest
the young who’ve been slain
they’d fill those meadows with ease.
And yet they wonder why should I
be grieved — repelled by all they’ve done.
They start a war for greed to bleed
a land — rejoicing when they’ve “won”.
Democracy is just a dream
if to create it you have to kill that child.
There’s places you can go with snow
and rain and sunshine all around.
But where that child now lay in clay
is scorched and birds don’t make a sound.
He died in vain — this war’s insane!
And the earth cries out this anthem for her child.
Lead vocals: Alan Morrison. Drums: Fredrik Björling.
Bass: Samuel Laxberg. Acoustic guitar: Alan Morrison.
Pump organ: Otto Wellton. French horn: Johan Ahlin.
Trumpet: Eirik Bernhard Steinsvik. Oboe: Daniel Burstedt.
Bassoon: Anders Matell. Glockenspiel: Magnus Einarsson.
Backing vocals: Aminah Al Fakir, Alan Morrison, Linda Öst, Idde Schultz & Otto Wellton.
© Alan Morrison, 2017
The Naked Troubadour 