Inappropriate and Perhaps Slightly Tasteless Pop Songs About Areas of the World Suffering From Civil War or General All-Round Unpleasantness

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... there are not enough of these anymore, where is "Darfur" by the Cheeky Girls, for instance?

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:26 (seventeen years ago)

BELFAST (BONEY M)
Got to have a believin'
Got to have a believin'
Got to have a believin'
All the people
Cause the people are leavin'
When the people believin'
When the people believin'
When the people believin'
All the children cause the children
Are leavin'

Belfast
Belfast
When the country rings the leaving bell you're lost
Belfast
Belfast
When the hate you have
For one another's past
You can try (you can try)
You can try (you can try)
You can try
To tell the world the reason why
Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

It's the country that's changin'
It's the country that's changin'
It's the country that's changin'
All the people
'Cause the people are leavin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
It's the world that's deceivin'
All the people
Cause the people believin'
Are leavin'

Belfast
Belfast
When the country rings the leaving bell you're lost
Belfast
Belfast
When the hate you have
For one another's past
You can try (you can try)
You can try (you can try)
You can try
To tell the world the reason why
Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

When the children believin'
When the children believin'
When the children believin'
All the people
Cause the people are leavin'
When the people are leavin' (you)
When the people are leavin'
When the people are leavin'
All the children
Cause the children believin'
Are leavin'

Belfast
Belfast
When the country rings the leaving bell you're lost
Belfast
Belfast
When the hate you have
For one another's past
You can try (you can try)
You can try (you can try)
You can try
To tell the world the reason why
Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

Belfast
Belfast
Belfast

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:26 (seventeen years ago)

THE LEBANON (HUMAN LEAGUE)
She dreams of nineteen sixty-nine
Before the soldiers came
The life was cheap on bread and wine
And sharing meant no shame
She is awakened by the screams
Of rockets flying from nearby
And scared she clings onto her dreams
To beat the fear that she might die

And who will have won
When the soldiers have gone
From the Lebanon
The Lebanon

Before he leaves the camp he stops
He scans the world outside
And where there used to be some shops
Is where the snipers sometimes hide
He left his home the week before
He thought he'd be like the police
But now he finds he is at war
Weren't we supposed to keep the peace?

And who will have won
When the soldiers have gone
From the Lebanon
The Lebanon
The Lebanon
From the Lebanon

I must be dreaming
It can't be true
I must be dreaming
It can't be true

And who will have won
When the soldiers have gone?
From the Lebanon
The Lebanon
The Lebanon
From the Lebanon

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:27 (seventeen years ago)

... truly appalling lyrics, with not even the excuse of being written by a German

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:27 (seventeen years ago)

CAMBODIA (KIM WILDE)
Well he was Thailand based
She was an airforce wife
He used to fly weekends
It was the easy life
But then it turned around
And he began to change
She didn't wonder then
She didn't think it strange
But then he got a call
He had to leave that night
He couldn't say too much
But it would be alright
He didn't need to pack
They'd meet the next night
He had a job to do
Flying to Cambodia

And as the nights passed by
She tried to trace the past
The way he used to look
The way he used to laugh
I guess she'll never know
What got inside his soul
She couldn't make it out
Just couldn't take it all
He had the saddest eyes
The girl had ever seen
He used to cry some nights
As though he lived a dream
And as she held him close
He used to search her face
As though she knew the truth
Lost inside Cambodia

But then a call came through
They said he'd soon be home
She had to pack a case
And they would make a rendezvous
But now a year has passed
And not a single word
And all the love she knew
Has disappeared out in the haze
Cambodia - don't cry now - no tears now

And now the years have passed
With not a single word
But there is only one thing left
I know for sure
She won't see his face again

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:28 (seventeen years ago)

katie melua could nail a bad song about darfur.

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:31 (seventeen years ago)

She should write a song called "North Ossetia" (or is it "South Ossetia"?) or "Nagorno-Karabakh"

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:32 (seventeen years ago)

'Cambodia' is fab

blueski, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:33 (seventeen years ago)

All of those songs are great!

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:33 (seventeen years ago)

Richard Harris - There Are too Many Saviours on my Cross

There are too many saviours on my cross
lending their blood to flood out my ballot-box
with needs of their own.

Who put you there?
Who told you that that was your place?

You carry me secretly naked in your hearts,
and clothe me publicly in armour, saying
"God is on our side,"
Yet I openly cry
"Who is on My side? Who, tell Me who?
You who buried your sons and crippled your fathers
whilst you buried My Father in crippling His Son."

The antiquated Saxon sword, rusty in its scabbard of time,
now rises.
You gave it cause in My name,
bringing shame to the thorned head that once bled for
your salvation.
I hear your cries in the far-off byways, and your
mouth pointing north and south,
and my Calvary looms again, desperate in rebirth.
Your earth is partitioned but in contrition
it is the partition in your hearts that you must abolish.

You nightly watchers of Gethsemane,
who sat through my nightly trial delivering me from evil,
now, deserted, I watch you share your silver.
Your purse, rich in hate, bleeds my veins of love,
shattering my bone in the dust of the Boxside
and the Shaghill Road.

There is no issue stronger than the tissue of love,
no need as holy as the palm outstretched in the
run of generosity,
no monstrosity greater than the anger you inflict.

Who gave you the right to increase your fold while
decreasing the pastures of My flock?
Who gave you the right? Who gave it to you, who?
and in whose name do you fight?

I am not in heaven,
I am here, hear Me.
I am with you, see Me,
I am in you, feel Me,
I am of you, be Me,
I am for you, need Me.
I am all mankind, only through kindness will you reach Me.

What masked and bannered men can rock the ark
and navigate a course to their own anointed kingdom come?
Who sailed their captain to waters that they troubled
in My font, sinking in the ignorant seas of prejudice?

There is no virgin willing to conceive in the heat of
any bloody Sunday.
You children, lying in cries on Derry streets,
pushing your innocence into the full-flushed face of Christian guns,
battling the blame on each other,
Do not grow tongues in your dying dumb wounds speaking My name.
I am not your prize in your death,
you have exorcised Me in your game of politics.

Go home to your knees, and worship Me in any cloth,
for I was never tailor-made.
And who told you I was? Who gave you the right to think it?
Take your beads in your crippled hands.
Can you count My decades?
Take My love in your crippled hearts.
Can you count the loss?

I am not orange, I am not green,
I am a half-ripe fruit, needing both colors to grow into ripeness,
and shame on you to have withered my orchard!
I, in my poverty, alone and without trust,
cry shame on you and shame on you again and again
for converting Me into a bullet and shooting Me into men's hearts.

The ageless legend of My trial grows old, and the youth of your pulse,
staggering shamelessly from barricade to grave,
filing in the book of history My needless death one April,
Let Me in My betrayal lie low in My grave,
and you in your bitterness lie low in yours,
for our measurements grow strangely dissimilar.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, sullied be Thy Name!

It should be 'the Bogside' and 'Shankill Rd' but i prefer Boxside and Shaghill......

sonofstan, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:37 (seventeen years ago)

....and i like the way Richard doesn't shy away from the thespian challenge of assuming the voice of God.

sonofstan, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:39 (seventeen years ago)

Hmmmmmmmmm, not sure if that qualifies as a pop song however!

Tom D., Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:40 (seventeen years ago)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVwWf5i9ms

Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:43 (seventeen years ago)

Hmmmmmmmmm, not sure if that qualifies as a pop song however!

Oops..... should read the thread title properly. Whatever it is, a pop song it isn't

sonofstan, Tuesday, 9 October 2007 11:52 (seventeen years ago)

Shakira - Timor

dad a, Friday, 12 October 2007 15:32 (seventeen years ago)

Nice one!

Tom D., Friday, 12 October 2007 15:35 (seventeen years ago)

Simple Minds- Belfast Child.

Neil S, Friday, 12 October 2007 15:38 (seventeen years ago)

sting - russians

electricsound, Friday, 12 October 2007 15:40 (seventeen years ago)

Bros - My Sister

Mark G, Friday, 12 October 2007 15:48 (seventeen years ago)

The Cranberries own this thread:

ZOMBIE
With their tanks and their bombs,
And their bombs and their guns

BOSNIA
Bosnia was so unkind
Sarajevo changed my mind

Ismael Klata, Friday, 12 October 2007 16:08 (seventeen years ago)

Dunno about a pop song but . . .

Dachau blues those poor jews
Still cryin' 'bout the burnin' back in world war two's
One mad man six million lose

The Wayward Johnny B, Friday, 12 October 2007 18:44 (seventeen years ago)

What are the premises here? I mean, is a pop song about a local conflict always inapprioriate and tasteless no matter how good it is? In which case I disagree.

If those are the premises, then I guess Sting's "They Dance Alone", about Pinochet in Chile, fits perfectly in here. But personally I love the lyrics to that one, just like I also love the "Russians" lyrics.

Geir Hongro, Friday, 12 October 2007 21:33 (seventeen years ago)

Does "Sun City" count?

The Real Dirty Vicar, Saturday, 13 October 2007 12:38 (seventeen years ago)

five years pass...

... Boney M thread made me wonder if there were any more recent examples of these?

Designated Striver (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 January 2013 13:30 (twelve years ago)


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