24 October 2007

Audrey G.(60), Joshua T.(60), Woody N.(69), Chrissy D.(21), Nathan C.(33), Luke W.(33), Justin B.(30), Timothy C.(30), Anna R.(31), Kymberly B.(35)

21 comments:

Erin M. said...

Norman Whitfield/ Barrett Strong – “War” (1969)

War, huh yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
War huh yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Say it again y'all
War, huh good god
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. Listen to me

War-I despise
'Cause it means destruction
Of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go off to fight
And lose their lives

War, huh good god y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. say it again
War whoa lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. listen to me
It ain't nothin but a heartbreaker
Friend only to the undertaker

Oh war, is an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest in the younger generation
Induction, then destruction who wants to die

War, good god y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. say it say it say it
War uh huh yeah huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. listen to me
It ain't nothin but a heartbreaker
Got one friend that's the undertaker

Oh war has shattered many young man's dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean
Life is much to short and precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life it can only take it away oooooh

War, huh good god y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. say it say again
War whoa lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing. listen
It ain't nothin but a heartbreaker
Friend only to the undertaker

Peace love and understanding tell me
Is there no place for them today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But lord knows there's got to be a better way

Anonymous said...

Hello All,
My name is Luke and I am an engineering freshman at Clemson. This song is unlike many songs of the era and comes right out and says what it is about. It is clearly a song against war, and is most likely focused on the war in Vietnam that was going on at the time of it being made. This song is intriguing to me, because although the title could be taken as either for or against war, the lyrics such as “War, huh yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” clearly indicate it is against war. These words sum up the ideas of the entire song into a short, simple phrase that is easily understood. I am not sure who the writer of this song was, but it seems to me that he was probably a member of the hippie counter culture that had developed. What do you all think about this song?

Talk to you all soon,
Luke Westervelt (33)

Anonymous said...

I agree with Luke. This song was clearly written in response to the Vietnam War. I've never heard the song before, but it seems like it an effective medium for anti-war protest in general.
This song, appropriately named "War," does this by rhetorically showing how war is good for "absolutely nothing": it destructs "innocent lives," causes "tears" in "mothers' eyes," breaks hearts, and only serves to assist in death ("friend only to the undertaker"). Men who fight in wars can be left "disabled" and "bitter," and the song ends with the biting lyrics of "they say we must fight to keep our freedom/but lord knows there's gotta be a better way." All of these images in the song evoke the despondency and misery of war, which makes it a relevant anti-war protest song in the midst of the turmoil surrounding the 1960s' Vietnam War.

Anonymous said...

Hey guys,

I agree with both Luke and Audrey. It does not take a genius to realize the message Whitfield and Strong wanted to convey to the public. The song does not beat around the bush. The lyrics blatantly state that the songwriters despise war and want to convince listeners of the same thing by using words that invoke emotion, as Audrey stated. I also noticed they use a lot of repetition to keep the main chorus running through listeners' heads. They ask "what is it good for?" and answer with "absolutely nothing" nine times throughout a three and a half minute song. The lyrics bring about plenty of good points to argue against war. The lyrics include the fact that war can only take life, not give life. I also noticed they say "good God" and "oh Lord" in several different verses, and it seems to me that they are begging, so to speak, to God to end the war. It is pretty obvious that the purpose of the song was to gain more voice by convincing the public and hopefully convince the government to stop the war.

- Nathan Cox 33

Anonymous said...

Hey people!,
My name is Tim and I'm a criminal justice freshman at USC Upstate. I agree with what everyone has said about the song. The song is clearly directed very obviously towards the war. It apparently is written by someone who is anti-war because all they do is put down war, probably a hippie like Luke said. It shows that the only outcome of engaging someone in the act of war is catastrophe. It also seems that the person who wrote the song sees themselves as if they are superior to those people who fight these wars. The way that they keep calling God could be seen in a couple ways. You could see it like Nathan sees it and they are asking God for help, but you could also view it as them saying like "oh my god" in which when the word is not capatilized it's not asking God for anything at all. I think that they just think that anybody who fights in wars are dumb and don't have anything better to do.
Talk to yall later.
Timothy Calder(30)

Anonymous said...

Hello Everyone! My name is Chrissy Diffenderffer and I go to Clemson. I'm a freshman, and I'm currently undecided as a major. I think that this is one of the most influencial songs about the War. I also agree with what everyone else has said about the song. It is very anti-war. It also does not beat around the bush with a bunch of hidden meanings like a lot of other anti-war songs do. The song comes right out in its first stance to talk about how bad war is. Then in the second stance,it goes on to say "War- I dspise". It then goes on to talk about all the bad things that war does, for example "destruction of innocent lives, Oh war has shattered many young man's dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean"
It then talks about how life is to short to spend fighting others and losing young lives. This is one of my favorite War songs becuase not only is it a great song, but it very impacting. Just from listening to the song one time, you are immediately influenced by the opinions of the song artist.

Chrissy Diffenderffer (21)

JABE said...

Hello my name is Justin Brown. I am a freshman at USC Upstate and my major is undeclared. As everyone has already stated, this song is a very obvious anti-war protest song. The songs opening lyrics come out and say that war is good for "absolutely nothing". The artist says that war is despised because it "means destruction of innocent lives" and explains that war causes pain to the mothers who lose their sons in war. The lyrics continue on to say that those who do not die in war are left "disabled bitter and mean". Edwin Starr, the songs artist, voiced the feeling of the generation at the time and ended the song saying there must be a better war to obtain our freedom than war.

JABE said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Hello All,
It was nice to hear all of your responses to the issue. It seems that we seem to all be on the same page about what this song is about. Nathan certainly brought up some interesting points about this song and the author calling out for god. I myself did not even notice this when I first read it, but upon examining it under this light, his assertion seems correct especially when the statements of “good God” and “oh Lord” are seen. Chrissy also brought up an interesting point about how the author “does not beat around the bush.” That is something that has always made this an interesting song to me. Although I do not agree with its message, the fact that the author was about to come out and say his points directly instead of hiding behind metaphors and innuendo. Well I hope to hear from you all soon.

Your Groupmate,
Luke Westervelt (33)

Anonymous said...

Hey guys, how are you?
After rereading everyone's comments I agree with Luke that Nathan made a bunch of good points that I didn't notice the first time I read the lyrics. For instance that you can only take life not give it, and especially Nathan's take on the calling out to God to end the war. It's also very interesting that the writer does say war is good for absolutely nothing 9 times in a 3 minute song. However, I also think that Tim makes a good point about how the God isn't capitalized so rather than be begging God for help, it's a lot more informal. I look forward to hearing back.

Chrissy D (21)

Anonymous said...

Hey guys,

I appreciate how some of you agree with my points. I'm in agreement with pretty much everything everyone has said, especially how Chrissy pointed out the straight-forwardness of the lyrics. I found it interesting that the songwriters and singers did not hesitate to use their freedom of speech and come out with what they wanted to say, not fearing any prosecution or criticism. However, as for the lower-cased "god," I think it might just be a certain version of the lyrics, but I do find it interesting how some interpreted it as being an informal way of communicating with god or others. I also like how Jabe pointed out that at the end of the song, the lyrics ask why peace, love and understanding cannot be the norm, as opposed to war, and how he adds that there must be another way.

- Nathan Cox, 33

Josh Turner's English Blog said...

Hello everyone. My name is Joshua Turner and I go to Clemson.
Just like everyone else, I believe that the author of this song is strongly against war and is pro peace. The author combines appeals to emotion, repetition, facts, and personal experience to bring viewers into his shoes. The pictures add to the effect the words have. It is hard to not want peace after seeing the words from the sixth stanza,
“Oh war has shattered many young man's dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean
Life is much to short and precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life it can only take it away oooooh,”
and then seeing the picture where a boy is putting flowers in the guns of the soldiers. I believe the author has been in war and these are his personal thoughts and reflections. The question “why?” is burned into his head. His mind desperately struggles to find an answer but there seems to be no hope for an end to that struggle. War is constantly happening and people are constantly dying. The world is constantly decaying.
“…..They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But lord knows there's got to be a better way”

Anonymous said...

Hello All.
After reading over your posts and looking at the lyrics on this site and others, I think I have to agree with Chrissy that the use of god was meant in the slang form as opposed to refereeing to God. I went looking over the Internet for something that has the same sort of message as this song and I believe I found an effective one(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-NRriHlLUk). This song by John Lennon was written at the same time and has the same serious subject about war being worthless while having a catchy tune as well. Both songs are able to communicate their message effectively through the repetitions of lyrics like war is absolutely good for nothing and “ give peace a chance.”


Luke Westervelt (33)

Anonymous said...

Hello everyone this is Justin Brown. It seems that everyone is on the same level in understanding the meaning of this song. The artist uses very straight forward wording in his lyrics and this made the song very easy to understand. It is very obvious that this song is dead against war. The song states that war is good for absolutely nothing and "life is much to short to spend fighting wars". Just about every line repeats this message throughout the song. The artist thinks that war is not good at all in anyway. The song says that "Oh war, is an enemy to all mankind". After reading these lyrics I got the feeling that even if war can be considered a necessary evil, the artist still doesn't believe in its use and all. It causes pain to all humanity regardless of race or gender. Everyone has come to the same conclusion and I agree with Luke's statement about how the artist comes out directly and says what he means and doesn't try to hide the songs meaning behind metaphors.

Anonymous said...

Hello everyone this is Justin Brown. It seems that everyone is on the same level in understanding the meaning of this song. The artist uses very straight forward wording in his lyrics and this made the song very easy to understand. It is very obvious that this song is dead against war. The song states that war is good for absolutely nothing and "life is much to short to spend fighting wars". Just about every line repeats this message throughout the song. The artist thinks that war is not good at all in anyway. The song says that "Oh war, is an enemy to all mankind". After reading these lyrics I got the feeling that even if war can be considered a necessary evil, the artist still doesn't believe in its use and all. It causes pain to all humanity regardless of race or gender. Everyone has come to the same conclusion and I agree with Luke's statement about how the artist comes out directly and says what he means and doesn't try to hide the songs meaning behind metaphors.

Justin Brown (30)

Anonymous said...

I realized I forgot to introduce myself in my first post. Well, I'm Audrey and I'm a Communication Studies major at Clemson.
I think that everyone has made great points. This song is, like someone mentioned, very straightforward. I don't think the songwriter intended too much scrutiny of it because his message is clear. I found Justin's comment-"I got the feeling that even if war can be considered a necessary evil, the artist still doesn't believe in its use and all" very interesting, and I agree with it, because the artist seems to believe that peace is the ultimate-and only- answer. However, in order to achieve peace, one generally has to go through hard times. The question this raises, of course, is how does the artist suggest that we can achieve that peace? Is it even possible? In this song, he doesn't. Of course, I can see that's not necessarily the song's intent or what it's even about...it's simply an idealized vision of the artist. The song itself does point to a larger social question, though- it shows the state of humanity plagued by war, and it also subconsciously raises the question, where do we go from here? How would we even begin to achieve this peaceful utopia that seems the only alternative to the "destruction" the artist sees in the act of war? Is that even the point? This song, at least, fits in well with the times it was written in and seems universal in its relevancy. The mention that of "god" is slang is an interesting observation, but I can't help but wonder if the artist really intended it for it to be taken that way with the otherwise straightforwardness of his lyrics...although I guess that's the beauty of songs, that they can be looked at subjectively. Those are just some of my thoughts...thanks for all of y'all sharing yours too!

Anonymous said...

Hey guys,

I really like the new observations everyone made recently. There are a lot of good points that I hadn't realized myself. I found Audrey's observation both interesting and true that the artist does condemn war and says it's terrible, but refrains from offering alternatives more specific than just "peace." I realize his main objective in writing the lyrics was to put down war and say how bad it was and why, but I would've liked to hear what he might've wanted to do instead. Again, I don't think the God thing was intentional. After all, it was a song, so people simply heard the lyrics and didn't notice anything grammatical, so I'm still not sure if the artist meant anything by that, but it's still interesting nonetheless.

- Nathan Cox 33

Anonymous said...

Hey Everyone,
It was really interesting to read every one of the comments and see what everyone though about the song. I think everyone is pretty much in an agreement about what the song is about. There is one song that I think has a lot to do with this one, however it's already a song being looked at by one of the groups. But nonetheless, if anyone would like to look at it it's called Fixin to die a rag by Country joe Macdonald. Another thing that I think went along with this song pretty well was a picture I found. It lists a number of american's dead because of the war and then asks why, much like this song.
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/exhibits/redstick/protest.jpg
I enjoyed hearing what you all had to say!

Chrissy D (21)

Anonymous said...

Hello again group. I like the points that Audrey brought up. As opposed to war as the artist is, he never makes a point on other ways to achieve peace besides war. Which might back the point that war is a necessary evil and sometimes there is no way around it. I'm sure the artist realizes this but still choices to believe that there might be another way. God is also brought up a lot in previous post. I agree with Luke that the word God was most likely meant more as a slang term than in reference to religious views. After looking through youtube.com I came across this link.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_tBDk4SuvA

It is a video shows pictures of the horrible things war brings about and the protest there was against it. It also shows the brave soldiers that fought for us and our freedom. One thing I wish that this song would have done would have been to talk about the soldiers bravery, if only briefly. It seems like they were somewhat looked over and it is because of them that we still have our freedom today. Besides that one thing, I think the video does a good job of showing the strong resentment to war that the generation carried back then and showing the plea from the people for the war to be ended.

Justin Brown (30)

Anonymous said...

Hello again everyone,
I too agree with what Audrey said, “in order to achieve peace, one generally has to go through hard times.” Anything hard is worth doing. Peace surely is hard to achieve. It is a vastly harder task through times of war. The author has an idea about where he would like the world to be. As we all already know, that place is a peaceful and unified world. I hope the author makes his dreams a reality. Peace will get nowhere if no action is taken. The voices of the oppressed must be heard in order for change to take place. However, is not this the root of all wars? Voices are not heard so action is taken to in order to be heard. Peace would be excellent to have. However, a lot of people do not have the patience to wait for a peaceful world which is why force, or war, is usually taken. It is very upsetting. All we can do is put our voice out there and hope that something changes. I have a lot of respect for the author for communicating his thoughts. He does not hide his wishes, he is straightforward with them.

-Joshua Turner

Anonymous said...

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I find Josh's perspective interesting, and I agree with what he says about
the voice of the oppressed being the "root of all wars." It seems as if war cannot exist without peace and vice versa. These constant war/peace cycles are what have propelled humanity from the beginning of time to now. In an
idealized world, there would be no war, as the artist wishes, but unfortunately, a constant state of peace is highly unlikely because there will always be a war waiting in the wings, so to speak. However, like Josh, I respect the artist for putting his thoughts on war out there and if nothing else, his vision is at least something to definitely strive for.