Customer Reviews

Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this CD because I was a huge fan of Eddie Vedder's songs from the Into The Wild Soundtrack.
Although I did like his music, I was more impressed by Brendan James first song, Heroe's song. It was the one song that didn't seem to have a political statement, more so a story about a soldiers struggling. Very moving song-literally brought me to tears.
A must buy for the amazing collaboration of talent.

Just two days after the tragedy of 9/11, 22-year-old Tomas Young enlisted in the Army to defend the nation he loves. Though he expected to fight al-Quaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, in 2004 he was shipped off to a different war. After barely a week, he was shot in a Humvee that lacked armer; paralyzed by a bullet in his spine, he returned home. As he regained conscousness at Walter Reed, among his wounded peers, he asked himself what Iraq had to do with the attacks of 9/11, Islamic terrorists, or weapons of mass destruction. On this remarkable album are 30 songs that helped get this courageous American through his ordeal in Iraq and back home. These songs are brutally honest; you won't find the typical sanitized pop of the airwaves here. The music speaks from the heart; we may not "enjoy" or be entertained by the tracks, but these songs will always touch you. Bruce Springsteen's "Devil and Dust" is a sincere and heartfelt ballad. Eddie Vedder of Pear Jam who wrote two original songs for this album: "Long Nights," which speaks of Tomas's deep feelings when as he struggles through another day or night, and "No More," which captures the political reality and antiwar sentiment captured in the documentary of the same title. In the words of Eddie Vedder, Tomas's music should "be heard behind the White House gate."

Full disclosure: I'm a child of the 60s, now nearing 60 myself, and my musical tastes are what you'd might guess. So most of disc one are not my cuppa tea - I say most because track 14, "The Fourth Branch" by Immortal Technique is a revelation - I keep playing it, can't get enough of it, it's almost hypnotic in its combination of musicality and politics, which are broad, deep, and acute. It's worth the price of the disc. But the second disc, to me, is gold - Pearl Jam's cover of "Masters of War" is ground-shaking. I'm in love with this disc. And do yourself a favor, go see the film and take everyone you know with ya.

I found myself revisiting this release after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill because so many songs reference the connection between the war and oil. I wouldn't normally listen to many of the genres represented here, but the ones selected are very appealing. It's expanded my horizon beyond what any news story could and I'm sure that's due to the fact the songs were selected by someone who's been there. I'd encourage everyone to suspend any political or musical biases to hear this cd.

This is one of the most interesting albums I've heard in a very long time. You have a mix of rock,folk rap and r&b just to make a short list. Anti war, yes but it doesn't get in the way of the music. You don't have to agree, just enjoy the talent that is on this album. I found myself enjoying some of the rap type songs way more than I should have. I'm 52 and amazed at the mix here. You do have to like a bit more hard core type music to enjoy it all, but there are a lot of softer songs also. Very meaningful stuff here that will rip at your heart at times. Not for the timid but highly recommended.

I found this album haunting, especially of how much the songs reminded me of the Vietnam era. I thought the ablums music was very good. I read the story of the young Vet who put the album together and was glad to hear that sales of this album will assist him in living. Everyone needs to buy one.

I came upon this compilation after watching a Bill Moyers special on PBS about the documentary "Body of War." I haven't had a chance to see the film yet, but from the clips I saw on television it looks to be a sensitive and politically conscious look at some of the human costs of the Iraq War.

Tomas Young, the protagonist of that documentary, assembled this compilation album and he's done an amazing job. The term "protest song" has a pejorative ring these days, especially among people who forget that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was a kind of protest song in its day. These are songs that speak to our time, and to the profound agony into which this senseless war has hurled our country, but that doesn't make them any less powerful, beautiful, or affecting as songs. As long as war, hypocrisy, and the abuse of power remain a part of human life the themes addressed in these songs will remain timeless. And as long as soldiers keep coming back from Iraq in wheelchairs and body bags, as long innocent Iraqi civilians lose their lives by the thousands, the wounds that these songs yearn to soothe will remain open and raw.

The music spans a range of genres, styles, and moods, from the lilting melancholy of Brendan James's opening track "Hero's Song" to the pounding rage of Fields of Agony's "No Use for a Name" to the edgy, lyrical irony of David Ford's "State of the Union." Legends like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits share billing with relative newcomers. Nobody (with the possible exception of Young himself) is likely to love every single song in a collection as eclectic as this, but there's really something for everyone, and I guarantee that you'll find at least one track here that you've never heard before, but that speaks to you as strongly as anything else in contemporary music. Highest Recommendation.

This is my second review, so bear with me. I find almost all of the Body of War songs stimulating, and socially conscious. Some are as old standbys like Dylan's Master of War. Dylan must have barely reached adulthood when he wrote that. I like it, but i have heard all my classics so often, and i am getting into "audiophile" headphones and speakers, and i am hearing things in the music I never heard before. My point is I have enjoyed some of the newer artist featured on Body of War. For example, Henry Rollins, in general. Unfortunately, i still don't know some of these artists who sang on this album, yet. Nonetheless, these songs are some of the best i have heard in a long time. I find most all of them of these touching, authentic, thoughtful gut-wrenchingly honest.

Most of the songs do a good job of criticizing the war and our policies without sounding downright hokey or excessively whiny, but the songs themselves are mostly average and not fantastic. Some of the rap is pseudo socially conscious nonsense and some of the rock is wanna-be hip rockabilly, but most of the songs do not suffer from those shortcomings. On the whole it is a good album and worth the purchase. I can't wait until the documentary hits the screens, though.