A Cemetery

This was written after an English Literature trip with my college to the war graves in Belgium and France, a trip I can honestly say for many reasons is among the more powerful and cherished memories of my life. Completely leaving aside that I have great memories of being with my friends and girlfriend-at-the-time on that trip, it was also an unforgettable experience seeing the rows and rows of shining white graves at each site ... I don't know if I've ever seen anything more heartbreakingly, tragically beautiful.

I started writing this before even getting home from the trip, and finished it a short while later. It's rather more a poem than a song really, but I'd imagine it could be set to music ... also there are sections of repeating backing vocals with two lines multitracked over the top of each otherwhich mark it out as being a song. I wanted to make a statement with the structure here, which is why it's a little odd: the first four line section is meant to suggest a single grave, then the next section is meant to represent the "camera" as it were panning outwards to show countless rows of graves. The next verse, with the four couplets, is supposed to suggest pairs of graves, seperate from the others, as they aren't all just in neat rows: some of them seem to be rather randomly located, and there are a number in pairs where comrades-in-arms were buried together.

There are a few references in this song too:

"Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war" is the inscription on the grave of a soldier named Arthur Conway Young

There's a line which refers to graves of unknown soldiers who couldn't be identified. This got me thinking, what if some people were wrongly identified, and hence buried under the wrong name? To me, that's quite a scary thought. So the next line references that.

The "ten thousand white teeth on a green hill" line is a reference to that riddle from The Hobbit: " Thirty white horses upon a red hill, Now they tramp, now they champ, now they stand still", where the answer is teeth. The rectangular white graves do look somewhat like teeth.

Comments, as always, are welcome and encouraged

A Cemetery - July - August 2004

Across a sea of green
A single white stone
Can often be seen
To float all alone

On each of the stones
A single red rose
Casts a shadow on the earth
Where those who slain
Have so long lain
And will until their rebirth
For they will rise again

Chorus:
Walking my path
Through the past
It seems the air might say
"We are those who will be set free
When we meet on Judgement Day"

Ten thousand white teeth on a green hill
What once was moving now stands still

Heroes' names are engraved on stone
While countless others remain unknown

A number lie under a different name
For in death, all wrecks look the same

A sacrifice to the fallacy that war can end war
The stand to attention forevermore

Chorus:
Walking my path
Through the past
It seems the air might say
"We are those who will be set free
When we meet on Judgement Day"

They will rise
Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war
They will rise
They stand to attention forevermore
They will rise

Chorus:
Walking my path
Through the past
It seems the air might say
"We are those who will be set free
When we meet on Judgement Day"

Chorus2:
Walking through their resting place
I heard the spirits say
"We are those who were released
When we fought on Judgement Day"

They will rise
Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war
They will rise
They stand to attention forevermore
They will rise