51. 10 Soldier's Songs

Phew, now this takes me past the halfway mark and the whole enterprise is obviously getting tougher. If I believe, though, I can achieve.
Anyway, this topic isn't really intended to be in keeping with the mood of the nation, though everyone is talking about soldiers these days, for better or worse.

A Soldier's Tale - The Good, The Bad and the Queen
Soldier Girl - The Polyphonic Spree
Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag - Country Joe and the Fish
Broken Boy Soldier - The Raconteurs
In the Army Now - Status Quo
Buffalo Soldier - Bob Marley
Like Soldiers Do - Billy Bragg
Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits
Universal Soldier - Buffy Sainte-Marie
Soldier Man - Shack

Rock'n'Roll songs about war don't have the same immediacy and power as great war poetry, obviously, as you don't have time to form a band do a quick recording session in the middle of a war, while the war poets could recount their experiences at the time. And just generally, there hasn't been too much conscription in the rock'n'roll years so not too many rock stars have been in the army. Shaggy ... Elvis ... Jimi Hendrix ... Billy Bragg ... James Blunt, i think he has a song about being a soldier but, you know, i really hate his songs. not in a nasty way, i just hate them. Not that I don't also hate Status Quo, but i guess they're funny, so I'm less churlish about including them.
There have been plenty of protest songs about war but most pretty general and vague along the brilliant "War! What is it good for?" or the terrible "War is stupid" lines. Bob Dylan wrote about war, but he didn't, as far as i can recall, write about soldiers.
One could say that rock'n'roll has mainly failed the test on great, emotive war lyricism. Having written that, I've just remembered a superb song called Round Eye Blues by a band called Marah, a proper piece of heavy war poetry written from the point of view of a soldier in Vietnam. And i'd forgotten Paul Hardcastle. D-d-d-d-damn. And Born in the USA. In fact there's loads coming into my head now which is more suited than the list above ... oh well
I've rather chickened out of trying to write a genuine soldier's tale and I'm going to rather chicken out of saying anything about soldiering and war in general. I just don't know anything about that stuff. To be able to write well about that may be a test of good writing, or film-making, or whatever, but i wouldn't be so bold.
I think what I've written is very schooly - in fact it was written, a few years ago, after a class in how to teach poetry to children, so reminded me of the lessons in writing poetry I had as a kid, and the stuff I liked writing best, as you've no doubt guessed, was in the ballad form, whether comic or otherwise. I notice that as it progresses i take increasing delight in getting medieval on yo ass.
So this is
A SOLDIER'S BALLAD

A soldier with a steady heart
throughout the land went roaming
for one sweet maid with ready wit
to make his sad soul's home in

For a vision to his brash brain'd come
when barely out of boyhood
of the one woman for whose embrace
through all those years he laboured.

He wandered north, he wandered south,
his wealth he used up slowly;
At night, he paused and pondered, "does
the one I seek yet know me?"

He looked within the greatest cities,
he combed each inch of the widest moors,
he made brief friends on the eastern sands,
brave foes on the western shores.

One day, when some years past his prime
(for his cheeks were rough and hollowed
and his temples coarse and grizzled)
a smooth country path he followed;

espied he by this virgin route
a verdant sapling leftways leaning;
and by the tree the maiden sat
of whom he'd long been dreaming.

"Lord knight, although my faith was strong
that someday you would find me,
I do confess years have there been
when i thought my hopes behind me,"

the maiden spoke with gentle smile,
face lined by age and laughter,
"Rest now, I know you've journeyed long,
rest now and ever after."

"Fair lady, fain would I e'er rest,
now my eyes at last behold you.
True, long I've wandered, now I pray,
e'en longer my arms t'enfold you."

Elision, ne'er can you have too much elision, muthafuckas!