A folk-rock ballad that tells a story - but with fuzz guitar for emphasis... see the accompanying video
laos
vietnam
uxo
bombs
mag
clearance
mines
uxb
secret war
Story behind the song
Although I write a lot of songs whilst travelling, they don't usually have such a direct link as this. Visiting the Plain of Jars in Laos, the continuing consequences of America's 'Secret War' (1964-1973) where made abundantly, chillingly clear. We visited the MAG office in Xieng Khuang and also saw their UXO (unexploded ordnance) teams out in the paddi fields, actively clearing cluster bombs. Walking between the Jar sites we heard a siren go off to our right as another UXO was located: later we passed the paddi field where it lay surrounded by sandbags, ready to be safely blown up. Nearby we saw a sign for the 'spoon village' and watched as spoons and bangles were made from salvaged aluminium - the phrase 'making spoons instead of war' is theirs.
MAG have teams working constantly across Laos, but with something like 80 million UXO to clear, they need all the help they can get. For more information about the work done by MAG in Laos, with links to films they have made, go to http://www.maginternational.org/laopdr.
The site also has links explaining how you can donate money to help with their work - please support them, as we have.
Lyrics
09 Making spoons instead of war (capot 2 so in D) (5.49)
C F
I was born into a city that quite recently had suffered from the air
C F
As a child some cratered ruins were still playgrounds where we didn’t have a care
Em Dm
Oblivious to history we played out our innocent games of war
C G C
With little thought for the suffering that must have gone before
I live in a house where all the walls are out of kilter as can be
A survivor of bomb damage that goes back much more than half a century
Though next door had turned into a graveyard for a former family
all that’s in the past and so it rarely means a single thing to me
Am C
Life goes on, time runs by
F C
But sometimes you must wonder what it’s for
Am C
Times past are gone, so heave a sigh
F G C
We’re better making spoons instead of war
When I was in my teens I read the news about the war in Vietnam
And later got enraged about MyLai, agent orange and napalm
But we never heard of Laos or what later on was called the secret war
Where B52s dropped ordinance by the millions all along the Plain of Jars
Now it’s nearly 50 years since all those planes dropped their payload from the sky
But a legacy of UXB remains under the paddi fields they lie
Beneath the plow beneath the trees the bombs still wait their destinies to claim
A child at play a farmer’s road, you never know when they’ll explode and maim
Life goes on, time runs by
But sometimes you must wonder what it’s for
Times past are gone, so heave a sigh
We’re better making spoons instead of war
I walk along a narrow track from tourist site to village that’s the plan
To keep between the markers where the bomb disposal teams have cleared the land
And look out for the craters where the teams have dug them out and made them blow
That’s several hundred down - but 80 million more to go
There’s a family in the village that can’t use most of the land they now own
So they’ve found a new solution, to use the seeds America had sown
They take the aluminium from the bomb fins or the crashed planes from before
Then they smelt it all down and now they’re making spoons instead of war
Life goes on, time runs by…etc repeat&fade