| Rise Against – Hero of War Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Hero of War Rise Against strayed away from their normal hard rock to give us a taste of a softer song with much bigger meaning. Mostly sounding like The Rolling Stones, this song takes a much different approach when the band wanted to get something important across. This particular song has more of a Beatles feel to it. Rise Against tells the actual meanings of war; what actually happens and how it affects the soldiers physically and mentally. This elegiac melody is all about the hardships of war that every soldier goes through. They say that they took a man from his family as his children cried. (20-25) This has to hit the government hard because they are just ripping on the work of a soldier. It is almost political in a sense, because they are trying to stick it to the government. In the chorus he is saying how he will be a hero of war and how people will respect him for the things he has done. (10-18) Then the next verse talks about how he sees an Iraqi girl with a flag and tells her to stop. When she doesn't he shoots her. When the dust settles he sees that its a flag of surrender. (41-46) This line hit me so hard. I imagine being that guy, and I don't know how I could live with myself. It says /The shells jumped through the smoke/ and into the sand/ that the blood now had soaked/ she collapsed with a flag in her hand/ a flag white as snow. This is very personal to him. It might actually happened to him or someone that he knew. This is the hardest line to swallow. The diction that Rise Against uses just paints a terrible picture in my head, worse than any movie. Hero Of War shows the writers personal meaning of truth about war. Rise Against is trying show people a little bit about war that they didn't know without experiencing themselves. This song, even though its a song, embraces silence. It says what it needs to and you have to get the truth out of it. You have to really think about it and take from it what you will; whether that be a good beat, or a life lesson. This is a very personal song. /I said that sounds pretty good/ (4) and /I'll carry this flag/ (15). He is saying “I” in these two sentences which means that he takes the song very personally. |
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