Song Analysis

Look at the hate we're breedingLook at the fear we're feeding.

I believe that this line comments on social prejudice. When countries are at war, often at times the innocent parties serve as collateral damage from a nation's propaganda to demonise an entire nation/ ethnicity/ gender/ belief.

Words like "terrorists" or "aliens" become generalised labels and the majority of individuals victimised are innocent civilians who do not directly participate in their nation's political agenda.

I will attempt to approach this stanza by depicting a foreign mother and child being harassed by another group of people who are prejudiced to their race.

Look at the leaders we've followed Look at the lies we've swallowed.

I picked this line because I was interested in it's message of how the government controls its citizens through manipulation and false/ fabricated information.

This stanza places an equal amount of blame on the audience however. It suggests that we as a society willingly absorb the information the government provides to justify going to war. It is a criticism on how citizens follow government officials like sheep in a herd.

In my approach for this panel, I will choose to keep the government official in a higher position compared to the citizens. This is to emphasise power and control. I am also interested in having some form of propaganda in the background.

I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war.

The chorus strongly emphasises the song's message about the negative impacts of wars. To be specific, "civil wars" does not only imply a dispute within a nation but rather multiple disputes that are occurring within the planet that we all share and inhabit. The chorus emphasises that as a species we shed an unnecessary amount of blood for reasons that are selfish, inhumane and unjustifiable. 

I can go about interpreting the chorus in 2 ways:

• A negative approach, showing the grave impacts and mass casualties of war.
• Or alternatively a positive approach showing society giving up war altogether.

Week One- Song Choice

For this assignment I chose to do Civil Wars by Guns n' Roses.

"Civil War"

"What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men." *

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before

Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before

My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said, "Peace could last forever."
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
An' I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land

And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war

Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more

My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

"WE PRACTICE SELECTIVE ANNIHILATION OF MAYORS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
FOR EXAMPLE TO CREATE A VACUUM
THEN WE FILL THAT VACUUM
AS POPULAR WAR ADVANCES
PEACE IS CLOSER" **

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war

I don't need one more war
Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway