TWEET:🐥 Culture Club - The War Song

War is Stupid. People are stupid. And love means nothing in some strange quarters.

There’s no way I can put words to my feelings in regard to everything going on in Israel and Gaza.

And, really, everywhere that war and hate proliferate.

So many angry, insecure men with small penises in leadership positions around the world competing to prove who is the most horrible, who can ruin the most innocent lives.

And before you start trying to form some bullshit argument that women in power are just as brutal — I can hear the cries of “What about Thatcher!? “What about Mary I of England?” — I will cut you off and say no. Just, no.

It isn’t about gender. I know that. But what if we just, say, hypothetically agreed, across the globe, to only have female-identified officials in the highest power positions. For an, I dunno, ten-year trial period. Sure, there are details to work out regarding experience, nepotism, campaign finance, yadda yadda, but would it be worse than it is right now?

(Of course, visions of paragons of feminine wisdom such as Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene come to mind, and I find myself backing down from this nurture-forward fantasy world of peace, love, and understanding. What’s so funny about it?)

Even writing those above paragraphs took me over an hour, and they don’t remotely express the what my heart feels.

When this happens, when it all becomes too much to put into words, I do what I always do. I turn to music. I find refuge in the knowledge that there is a song that can speak to the unspeakable.

There are a ton of great anti-war songs in the rock canon.

Culture Club’s 1984 single “The War Song” is not considered one of them. But it should be. Boy George and company’s much-maligned anti-war tune from their third album, Waking Up With the House on Fire, was a critical and commercial failure.

I’d like to say that after the smash success and multiple hit songs from their first two releases, 1982’s Kissing to be Clever and 1983’s Colour By Numbers, “Waking Up….” was a deeply misunderstood hidden gem in the Culture Club canon. It’s not.

I gave the album a relisten before writing this, and, ooof — a lot of it is cringe-worthy. And not in a nostalgic way.

But “The War Song” is an exception.

I have to thank

MK Piatkowski

, who writes the excellent

Song of the Day

newsletter for getting this one stuck in my head.

I can see why the calypso-esque, upbeat vibe of the music, paired with a strong, anti-war message, might be interpreted by some as tonally problematic. Or maybe the music video, which shows gorgeous models in form-fitting war fashions strutting down “runways,” where black and white footage of kids playing with toy guns is interspersed with a red-headed Boy George singing about how war is stupid, might be off-putting to some folks. Perhaps the clips of kids dancing past TV screens that reveal their skeletons as they pass, cartoon-like, might seem a bit insensitive. But I see the video as transgressive. It highlights the darkly surreal and absurd nature of war. It’s akin to the Kubrick classic: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Are the lyrics:

War, war is stupid
And people are stupid
And love means nothing
In some strange quarters
War, war is stupid
And people are stupid
And I heard them banging
On hearts and fingers

as profound as The Temptations/Edwin Starr anti-war anthem “War” (written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong)

Ooh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears, to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives
I said, war (h'uh)
Good God, y'all!
(What is it good for?)

Absolutely (nothin') 'gin
Say it, again

I leave that for you to answer. But what both songs share is simplicity. An economy of words.

There’s no speaking in metaphors or overly flowery, literary language.

War is stupid. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin’.

And people are stupid. In a lot of strange, strange, quarters.

• Are you old enough to remember when this song came out in 1984?

• What are some of your favorite unsung anti-war songs?

• Have you listened to any Boy George solo albums? If not, I highly recommend his 2019 album, Life. It’s excellent.

• And welcome to all the new subscribers! Come join in the discussion!