Lyrics
"What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men." *
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said, "Peace could last forever."
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
An' I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land
And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
"WE PRACTICE SELECTIVE ANNIHILATION OF MAYORS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
FOR EXAMPLE TO CREATE A VACUUM
THEN WE FILL THAT VACUUM
AS POPULAR WAR ADVANCES
PEACE IS CLOSER" **
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war
I don't need one more war
Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway
So, you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men." *
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
D'you wear a black armband
When they shot the man
Who said, "Peace could last forever."
And in my first memories
They shot Kennedy
An' I went numb when I learned to see
So I never fell for Vietnam
We got the wall of D.C. to remind us all
That you can't trust freedom
When it's not in your hands
When everybody's fightin'
For their promised land
And
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
Look at the shoes you're filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
"WE PRACTICE SELECTIVE ANNIHILATION OF MAYORS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
FOR EXAMPLE TO CREATE A VACUUM
THEN WE FILL THAT VACUUM
AS POPULAR WAR ADVANCES
PEACE IS CLOSER" **
I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
And I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
I don't need your civil war
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store
Ain't that fresh
I don't need your civil war
I don't need one more war
I don't need one more war
Whaz so civil 'bout war anyway
The song is a 'Protest Song' against war
The song highlights the inability of government leaders to talk out their problems and how they are willing to enter into a war without or without the consent of those who elected them.
"What we've got here is failure to communicate."
"I don't like it any more than you men."
How a single individual/minority cannot be heard as the leaders of each country use propaganda to deflect the 'reason' for the war into one of national pride, thus causing the 'common' people to support their 'side' without actually giving thought to what they are actually fighting about. That the propaganda used promotes only the pro side such as 'human rights', religion etc.
"And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights"
That despite previous wars governments have not learned from their mistakes and that it is the young who continue to pay the price and continue to do so in each successive war.
"The way they've always done before"
"And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights"
That despite previous wars governments have not learned from their mistakes and that it is the young who continue to pay the price and continue to do so in each successive war.
"The way they've always done before"
It then goes on to make the point that the only people who really benefit from War are the arms dealers and other entrepreneurs, who get rich from providing what is required to continue the war (arms, bombs etc) while the items purchased are then used to kill the soldiers, both ours and theirs, on the battlefield.
"It feeds the rich while it buries the poor"
"It feeds the rich while it buries the poor"
This song is politically charged, and has an
entire verse about President Kennedy's assassination. It also deals with the
Vietnam War and the battle for civil rights in the US.
On September 27, 1993, Duff explained
where the song came from in an interview with the radio show Rockline:
"Basically it was a riff that we would do at soundchecks. Axl came up with
a couple of lines at the beginning. I went in a peace march, when I was a
little kid, with my mom. I was like 4 years old. For Martin Luther King. And
that's when: 'Did you wear the black arm band when they shot the man who said:
'Peace could last forever?'. It's just true-life experiences, really.'"
The speech at the beginning of the
song is from the movie Cool Hand Luke: "What we have here is a
failure to communicate..."
Sources:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101102123615AAnkyqD
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=5258
