We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Circle

from Cold Iron by David A. Harley

/

about

A very young, very angry song. I wrote it out of disrespect. Not disrespecting those who suffer and die in battle or as a less direct result of warfare, whether or not the world called them heroes; not disrespecting those who lived on, suffering injury or the loss of loved ones; but I have no respect at all for those whose ‘respect’ is founded on seeking political and commercial advantage. That cynical capitalization on tragedy - and I'm not just thinking about war - seems, if anything, even more in evidence today than it was when I wrote it in the 1980s.

lyrics

Sleep well old man, and don’t look down from some heavenly aerie
To see the edifice we’ve built on your philosophy
The sacrificial fires below bear the devil’s mark
But it was hands a lot like yours that struck the first spark


Sleep well old man, while history gathers dust
Logicians shake their heads and accountants check the cost
The shattered bones and bombed out lives are yesterday’s stale news
But it was hands a lot like yours that cut and primed the fuse

Rest in peace, old soldier: time has obscured the words
Carved in granite long ago on behalf of a grateful world
An alien soil feeds on the bones that deserved a better bed
Than the shit and slime of the shell-torn trench where your body splintered and bled

Square up to the judge and fear no grudge of the old men left behind
Who grasped the glory with greedy hands, irreversibly blind
To the faces behind the statistics, the bones beneath the clay
Who robbed you of your humanity and threw your life away

And for all they stole from you, they gained less than nothing and yet
They travel the same barren road, savagely, immutably deaf
Though they heard over and over the pacifist logic, the widow’s curse
And though our team of backroom boys sweated blood for ten thousand years

To find a way out of the spider’s reach, but they don’t even see the web
Nothing was gained, no lesson was learned, only new ways of dealing death
And so you died, trying to play fair, but who formulated the rules?
The implacable logic of history, generations of wise old fools

Sleep on, unborn child: don’t try the door
They’ll call you a war baby, but Christ only knows which war
Best to opt out with your faith still intact and your innocence undefiled
Before they become sublimation, a dustbin for wasted ideals

Prophets will offer causality, idealists will offer you dreams
Holy men offer you brimstone and visions, opportunists ways and means
But would you let one marry your daughter? Sell you a second-hand fire?
Trade you a soul for a rope and a gun, and drag your corpse through the mire?

Rest in peace old soldier, secure from the lure of the drums
Safe with your secrets in heaven or hell, your sanity is restored
And I’ll stand by your grave, a soldier of sorts – different army, same old war
You with a rifle, me with these words, both prey to causality’s laws

We fight the same battle on different sides – but there are no sides
Caught in the same vicious circle, unable to stem the tide
And still we contend with the same spider’s web
And ask the same questions, but who can resolve the riddle of the rain?

credits

from Cold Iron, released July 22, 2021
Words and music by David A. Harley
Recorded at Centre Sound, Camden
Guitar and vocal by David A. Harley

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

David A. Harley England, UK

David Harley is a former professional musician, administrator, IT security editor, author and researcher, and former much else that is even less impressive. He now lives in Cornwall. More info at whealalice.com

contact / help

Contact David A. Harley

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account

David A. Harley recommends:

If you like David A. Harley, you may also like: