{"id":1159,"date":"2015-12-04T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1159"},"modified":"2015-12-02T14:49:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T14:49:47","slug":"song-of-the-week-war-by-edwin-starr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1159","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;War&#8221; by Edwin Starr"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;War&#8221; by Edwin Starr:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_d8C4AIFgUg\" width=\"315\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of anti-war songs. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are mediocre. This one is the best.<\/p>\n<p>First, let&#8217;s address the songwriting: there are no metaphors in the lyrics; they just straight-up tell you what war is good for; musically&#8211;especially on this version (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D0K3LJq9KnU\" target=\"_blank\">you can hear the Temptations&#8217; original here<\/a>)&#8211;it pretty much sounds like the thing it hates: a riot of rhythm and noise.\u00a0 At this point, let&#8217;s slide into this particular arrangement, and acknowledge those wah-wah-pedaled guitars, the military-precise band, and especially&#8211;especially!&#8211;that saxophone, that saxophone, honking and spluttering and anchoring the rhythm all at once, that saxophone!<\/p>\n<p>And now: Edwin Starr. The vocal performance on &#8220;War&#8221; puts everything into that microphone, down those wires, and onto the tape: WAR! Huh! Good God, y&#8217;all! What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN&#8217;! You hear a man who means it, barreling into a recording in 1970 and out from your speakers in 2015, undimmed, undiminished, and every bit as vital to your present moment as it was to Edwin Starr&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22War%22%20by%20Edwin%20Starr\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;War&#8221; by Edwin Starr: There are plenty of anti-war songs. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are mediocre. This one is the best. First, let&#8217;s address the songwriting: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22War%22%20by%20Edwin%20Starr\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1161,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions\/1161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}