chick with reddish-blonde ringlets working a white guitar and another chick with short-cut curly black hair pounding the shit out of a drum kit, the cymbals flashing in the sun. Then it goes up close to the punk’s face, right up in his angry baby blues, and he sings like a half-drunk black man whose throat has been worked over with a razor:
“ I was walking on a street under a burning sun,
Put my visor down, thumbed the safety off my gun.
Heard a rumble, might be thunder in the sky,
Might be cannons or an F-18 fly-by. ”
Visor , Jeremy thinks. His lip curls. Guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Now intercut with the singer’s face and glimpses of the band are scenes of a house and some young dude’s father showing him an old picture of a soldier, and in the background an American flag is flying from the front porch.
Then the punk goes again:
“ I was raised to think my blood’s red, white and blue.
I was raised to do what I was told to do.
Somehow in all that time I never did ask why,
It’s the young men like me who go to kill and die. ”
Yeah, well, shit , Jeremy thinks. Get a clue . He believes he needs to sit down, his knees are weak and his stomach feels like it’s got fish swimming in it.
With an explosion of drums, bass and guitar that sounds like a freight train crashing through a building, the scene goes to the face of one of the soldiers on the street and Jeremy sees it’s the kid from the house, and now the herky-jerky shit goes wild because ragheads are shooting from windows and smoke curls up and the supposed soldiers run into another building except for one who goes down on his belly and jerks his legs like he’s hit, and the singer goes:
“ When the storm breaks and the rain falls down,
And the mighty laugh with a hollow sound,
We got money for oil, you got battles to fight,
And the heroes come home in the dead of the night. ”
Jeremy realizes the chair is empty. As he sinks into it, he is aware that the disturbed air around him smells like the hospital.
He doesn’t know a whole lot about music, but this isn’t bad. It’s got a strong beat. It sounds muscular and hard-assed. The guitars sound like bands of sharp steel flying through the air. There’s a firefight going on between the buildings, and then there’s a blast of flame and tendrils of black smoke whirl up and that, right there, looks pretty real. Then another of the good guys gets shot and claws at his throat and Jeremy leans forward because the shadows in this part are dark.
Everything stops but the drums, and over their thud and rumble the punk growls:
“ This was somebody’s child, this was somebody’s dream,
I hope they bury it where the grass is green. ”
And a second time, while the drums speak:
“ This was somebody’s child, this was somebody’s dream,
I hope they bury it where the grass is green. ”
The music swells again, the bass and the guitars come up and so does a trembly organ part that is half tough snarl and half sad murmur. The young guy who’s the hero of the video has somehow lost his helmet, he’s got blood on the side of his face, and around him lie the bodies of his brothers. And then the singer goes:
“ I’m not saying this world will ever get along,
Not saying everything is right when it’s so wrong,
But I do believe that war makes some men rich,
And too many of them love that wicked bitch,
When the storm breaks, and the rain falls down… ”
And now the young dude has lost it and broken cover, and wild-eyed he crosses the street alone and kicks in a door and nobody’s in there except a figure on the rubbled floor who looks up at him, and the camera shows that it’s an Iraqi kid maybe twelve or thirteen years old, who lifts his arms and crouches against the wall as the soldier raises his rifle and takes aim.
“ We got money for oil,
You got battles to fight,
And the heroes come home in the dead of the night .”
The camera backs out of the room and the soldier
“ I was walking on a street under a burning sun,
Put my visor down, thumbed the safety off my gun.
Heard a rumble, might be thunder in the sky,
Might be cannons or an F-18 fly-by. ”
Visor , Jeremy thinks. His lip curls. Guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Now intercut with the singer’s face and glimpses of the band are scenes of a house and some young dude’s father showing him an old picture of a soldier, and in the background an American flag is flying from the front porch.
Then the punk goes again:
“ I was raised to think my blood’s red, white and blue.
I was raised to do what I was told to do.
Somehow in all that time I never did ask why,
It’s the young men like me who go to kill and die. ”
Yeah, well, shit , Jeremy thinks. Get a clue . He believes he needs to sit down, his knees are weak and his stomach feels like it’s got fish swimming in it.
With an explosion of drums, bass and guitar that sounds like a freight train crashing through a building, the scene goes to the face of one of the soldiers on the street and Jeremy sees it’s the kid from the house, and now the herky-jerky shit goes wild because ragheads are shooting from windows and smoke curls up and the supposed soldiers run into another building except for one who goes down on his belly and jerks his legs like he’s hit, and the singer goes:
“ When the storm breaks and the rain falls down,
And the mighty laugh with a hollow sound,
We got money for oil, you got battles to fight,
And the heroes come home in the dead of the night. ”
Jeremy realizes the chair is empty. As he sinks into it, he is aware that the disturbed air around him smells like the hospital.
He doesn’t know a whole lot about music, but this isn’t bad. It’s got a strong beat. It sounds muscular and hard-assed. The guitars sound like bands of sharp steel flying through the air. There’s a firefight going on between the buildings, and then there’s a blast of flame and tendrils of black smoke whirl up and that, right there, looks pretty real. Then another of the good guys gets shot and claws at his throat and Jeremy leans forward because the shadows in this part are dark.
Everything stops but the drums, and over their thud and rumble the punk growls:
“ This was somebody’s child, this was somebody’s dream,
I hope they bury it where the grass is green. ”
And a second time, while the drums speak:
“ This was somebody’s child, this was somebody’s dream,
I hope they bury it where the grass is green. ”
The music swells again, the bass and the guitars come up and so does a trembly organ part that is half tough snarl and half sad murmur. The young guy who’s the hero of the video has somehow lost his helmet, he’s got blood on the side of his face, and around him lie the bodies of his brothers. And then the singer goes:
“ I’m not saying this world will ever get along,
Not saying everything is right when it’s so wrong,
But I do believe that war makes some men rich,
And too many of them love that wicked bitch,
When the storm breaks, and the rain falls down… ”
And now the young dude has lost it and broken cover, and wild-eyed he crosses the street alone and kicks in a door and nobody’s in there except a figure on the rubbled floor who looks up at him, and the camera shows that it’s an Iraqi kid maybe twelve or thirteen years old, who lifts his arms and crouches against the wall as the soldier raises his rifle and takes aim.
“ We got money for oil,
You got battles to fight,
And the heroes come home in the dead of the night .”
The camera backs out of the room and the soldier
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