1971
WAR * GENERATION GAP * RANDY'S 517 * UK
Released as the B side to Jimmy London's Bridge Over Troubled Water this is a storming cover of the Edwin Starr original. The lyrics of this Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong penned song: War, were fine for their day and, no doubt, helped to inform and shape public opinion, but seen from today's perspective they fall way short of the bigger picture. Just one example would be the view, in the song, that war is "friend only to the undertaker", well, today the tally of wars 'friends' would be considerably longer and include some of the biggest names in corporate America. Names like: construction company, KBR; oilfield technologies company, Halliburton; Engineering, construction, management, and development services, Parsons, and Bechtel the largest engineering company in the United States; not to mention the likes of Hazem Shaalan and others in the post invasion Iraq government. The list goes on, with the lowly 'undertaker' probably way down the governments extensive pay roll of 'friends'. And where does all this government money come from in the first place? Why not ask the Scottish monster, he was giving loads of it away yesterday to get his diminution of our hard won civil rights bill code named 'forty-two days' or I must save my cowardly face bill, yesterday in parliament.