ANTI-WAR TOP 10

Profonde Musique

April 28, 2026

In the year 1900, Mark Twain, the father of American letters, took a stab at parody songwriting and penned new lyrics to the “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a stirringly beautiful ballad written by Julia Ward Howe during the American Civil War often associated with the presidency and assassination of then President Abraham Lincoln. By using this war-themed and wholly ingrained melody as a backdrop to his biting commentary about American imperialism run amok, which began rearing its ugly head two decades before and continues today unchecked by our lunatic, criminal president what’s his name, he doubles down on the theme.

For your dancing and listening pleasure, I offer Mr. Samuel Clemens’s first verse: 

Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;

He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger’s wealth is stored;

He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;

His lust is marching on.

 Man, is this spot-on, like most of Twain’s work that after a century-plus still kicks the ass of modern critique. And so, now, 126 years later we have another broken administration entangling America in another senseless imperialist money-grab conflict. As we await new songs to refute this horror show, we’ll have some fun and look back this week on my Top Ten Anti-War Songs of all time.

As usual, whether my 300 Favorite Albums podcast or any list I’ve presented here thus far, we have some rules. The songs below must be general commentaries on war – as you can neatly apply Twain’s ditty to the current stupidity going on in Iran. Fun fact, in the nearly 250-year history (“celebrated” this July), the United States has been at war for 235 of them. This includes the twenty-plus years of war we just endured or more pointedly ignored from 2002 to a couple of years ago. Fifteen years of peace. Wow! It’s like celebrating a country that allows a Black man to play baseball a century after the freeing of African Americans from slavery, which, again, necessitated a war that slaughtered over 600,000 Americans.

But I digress. There are also no specific wars referenced in the songs here. This includes Northern Ireland, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” by U2, or the Viet Nam War, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die” by Country Joe & the Fish,” “Lay Down Your Arms,” Doron Levinson’s commentary on the Yom Kippur War, or the Cold War dirge by Sting, “Russians.” I also veer away from songs that speak of the racist slant of war (Marvin Gaye’s masterful soul classic, “What’s Goin’ On”) or our government using the poor (Creedence Clearwater Revival’s raucous beauty, “Fortunate Son”) to fight their battles. 

And so, in the wake of our latest madness for today, tomorrow and likely forever around here, and the return of selective service for all American men from 18 to 25 coming later this year, I give you my Top Ten Anti-War Songs list. 

10. “Political Science” – Randy Newman (1972)

We begin with the 20th century’s version of Mark Twain, America’s finest musical satirist, Randy Newman, with a song that celebrates wiping out the world because “they hate us anyhow, so let’s drop the big one now.” The unreliable narrator in Newman couldn’t help inhabiting the persona of the subjects he skewered – a bigot in “Short People’ or a slave trader from the title track of the album in which “Political Science” resides, Sail Away. Here he voices a crazed power-mad grievance master, which eerily reflects our current commander-in-chief, with just the right amount of shrugging to underscore how little powerful nations care about mass destruction. Newman always winced when he performed this live, often remarking on how surprised he was by audience snickers (it is damn funny), who in his humble estimation were unable to fathom the song’s authenticity or discomfort. Either way, Randy, as usual, like Mr. Clemens, nails it.

One – Metallica (1989)

Perhaps the most unsettling and trenchant of all the songs here, it is difficult to comprehend its tragic framework; so perfectly couched in a melancholy dirge befitting its subject. A true departure from the thrash-metal kings, Metallica, it was written by guitarist, James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, portraying a severely wounded solider by a land mine. He is blind, deaf, and unable to speak or move and begs God to take his life: “Hold my breath as I wish for death / Oh, please, God, wake me!” Oof. A disturbing music video, intercut with haunting scenes from the 1971 anti-war film, Johnny Got His Gun, depicts the victim attempting to communicate with the hospital staff, spastically jolting in his bed while he spells SOS in Morse code. Strangely, or maybe not considering our fascination with war around here, this was one of the underground band’s biggest hits, winning a Grammy, and helping to set up their rise to one of the most potent bands of the era. 

8. The Gunner’s Dream – Pink Floyd (1983)

In one of the darkest commentaries on the generational ravages of war, Roger Waters, songwriter, bassist, and main lyricist for Pink Floyd in the seventies into the early eighties, weighs in on the personal trauma of losing his father in World War II in this haunting song about a fallen “hero” as mere systemic fodder. A sequel to The Wall, essentially a treatise on the terrible fallout of that war on a swath of artists, film-makers, and mostly musicians that grew out of its horrors, prompting a failure in wiping it all away with fame, drugs, loose women, and empty songs of pseudo-revolution, The Final Cut, in which this song is the centerpiece, strips away all the metaphor and gets down to the pure fear and loathing therein. The doleful refrain of “no one kills the children anymore” is obliterated by the more realistic depiction of government-sanctioned murder, as “What’s done is done / We cannot just write off his final scene/ Take heed of the dream.” 

7. After the Parade – Dan Bern (2004)

My friend, the prolific singer-songwriter, Dan Bern planted “After the Parade,” a forlorn and gripping snapshot of a wounded veteran of war dealing with its fallout beyond the pomp of metals and parades, in an EP he titled My Country II during his yearlong protest-tour against the two wars that defined the opening years of this century. On the front lines, so to speak, with him, during this time, I was in the studio for some of these recordings, and I can tell you Bern was not, as he never is, fucking around. His defiance on the tall tales of “weapons of mass destruction” that were clearly fantasy but which sent hundreds of our best into a killing zone sent him on a quest to question it all by taking on the voice of the soldier. Like Randy Newman, with less snark, it is a powerful way to express the senselessness of war and the family wreckage it leaves in its wake: “Who do you think will push my chair / After the parade is done?”  

6. Phil Ochs – ‘I Ain’t Marching Any More’ (1965)

Ochs opens this ditty as if an Irish jig, casting a strangely chipper pall on the stanzas that count down the ceaseless violence facing generations of soldiers from the Battle of New Orleans (War of 1812) to the slaughter of General Custer’s murderous legion at Little Big Horn (1876), the great land-grab boondoggle of the Mexican-American War to the human meatgrinder of the American Civil War (early 1860s), the “War to End All Wars,” WWI (1917), its planet-devasting sequel, WWII (1941-1945), to the endless skirmishes of the Cold War (the second half of the American Century). One of the few songs here or anywhere that runs the gamut of infinite engagement, throughout, Ochs sounds equal parts exhausted, disgusted, and angry, while maintaining a Woody Guthrie level of preaching. Powerful stuff. For any generation.

5. War – Bob Marley & the Wailers (1976)

This one is interesting because in “War” Marley comes to the sad conclusion that war is inevitable if things keep going the way they’re going: “Until the philosophy which holds one race / Superior and another inferior / Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned / Everywhere is war, me say war.” However, it also points out that Marley is aware of the futile machinations of governments to mend their differences without it, and, moreover, dismiss the less fortunate in their systemically racist construct.

After surviving being wounded in an assassination attempt a few months after “War” was released on the Wailers fourth album, Rastaman Vibration, Marley courageously brought together rival political leaders Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on stage at the One Love Peace Concert on April 22, 1978, in Kingston, Jamaica, to symbolize unity during intense political violence, earning him the U.N. Peace Medal. More than anyone on this list, he put his life on the line for his beliefs in a volatile environment time and again, and although many of his songs comment on the inequality of the Jamaican political system, here he centers on humanity’s inexplicable initial and instinctual reaction to social challenges with violence – righteous or otherwise.

4. Masters of War – Bob Dylan (1963)

By far the meanest and most direct of any of Bob Dylan’s “finger pointing songs,’ as he once called them, “Masters of War” dispenses with symbolism and goes for the proverbial throat with lines eviscerating powerful, rich, clueless greed-mongers in a blanket appraisal of their evil intentions. Dylan was just 23 when he wrote this in the looming storm of the Cuba Missile Crisis and the tailwind of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning of the Military Industrial Complex driving the western hemisphere into perpetual war. Considering the man who led the U.S. military efforts to save the world from fascism wagging his finger at the very machinery that would one day explode the national debt beyond our wildest nightmares, Dylan spats in the song’s coda, “And I hope that you die / And your death will come soon / I’ll follow your casket / By the pale afternoon / And I’ll watch while you’re lowered / Down to your deathbed / And I’ll stand over your grave / ‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead.”

3. War Pigs – Black Sabbath (1970)

Like war, this one is loud, terrifying and vibrates long after experiencing it: Black Sabbath at their most politically potent with lyrics by bass player, Geezer Butler and siren vocals by the late, great Ozzy Osbourne, who was put on earth for this type of gruesome statement. You believe him when he whines about generals gathering as witches at black masses plotting to “bring death and hatred to mankind.” The opening drone-riff is pure plodding havoc, which leads ultimately to the gloriously distorted staccato breaks heralding a requiem for us all “as the war machine keeps turning.” Then, just when you’re blown back on your heels the song cruises into a funky groove driven by the thunder-struck drumming of Bill Ward adorned by Tony Iommi’s wild guitar runs that sound like bullets slashing through the sky into your brain.

2. War – Edwin Starr (1970)

You know it, “What is it good for?” And in case you’re wondering, “Absolutely nothing!” But if you were the millions of Jews being slaughtered in Europe or felt the need to kick despots from the island of Cuba you might have a word with Mr. Starr, but nonetheless this is the anti-war song that everyone knows and nearly everyone covers and is never out of fashion. When considering all the wars in which this country’s been embroiled (noted above), this is akin to Christmas songs that return every season and always have a purpose for being. Like Sabbath’s more somber trudging through the muck of human misery, Starr’s funk-addled stomping breaks, guttural ooh-ahh vocal percussion echoed by horns, and his preacher-like phrasing puts the world on notice about our never-ending fascination with death and destruction. The damn thing is aptly titled. “Good God, ya’ll!”

1. Give Peace a Chance – John Lennon (1969)

Why not end on a positive note? I mean, ya know. This has been grim. But one thing that John Lennon could always be counted on is going for the grand statement; the over-arching concept of imagining a world with no religion or borders (two main culprits in this war thing) or telling us with zero irony that all you need is love. This one, written on the run with his new bride, Yoko Ono on a peace jag abroad and then recorded live in a honeymoon bed open to the public in Toronto, Canada with Tommy Smothers and a bunch of hippies chanting his chorus, presents a blustery half-measure of hope that by asking us to consider the alternative to war we may be onto something. The pre-rap style verses (“Everybody’s talking ‘bout Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation, Integrations, mediations, United Nations, congratulations!”) cut a swath through the earworm refrain that reverberates into infinity. Lennon was still Beatle-John in 1969 and understood more than most that a good tune might do better to change the world than a march, and although we hardly ever give peace a chance, it’s nice to hear someone trying.