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.