Griffin House - I Remember (It's Happening Again)

This is easily one of my favorite songs. Poignant and straightforward, this song resonates with anyone whose relatives were involved in World War II or Vietnam. Connecting past conflicts with the incredulity that we are involved in current deployment overseas, this song is less a political statement than a call for rationality and pacifism. His upbeat guitar melody is a sweet irony to the frustration present in the lyrics.

Love the song and sing along:

My grandpa fought in World War II
My uncle fought in ‘Nam
My father was too young
He went to school and met my mom
And her dad always told us stories around dinner time
And there’s one he told when I was young that sticks out in my mind
He said ten years after daddy taught me bout the birds and bees
I was stranded in Pearl Harbor fighting off the Japanese
When the kamikaze pilots came and dove in without warning
I was on the Arizona on a warm December morning

(Chorus)
I Remember
When I was a younger man
We were soldiers
Fighting in a foreign land
Now I’m older
And it’s happening again

It was hard to have forgiveness for the things they did that day
And our President decided we should make their people pay
So we dropped on Nagasaki and we cut ‘em down to size
And the one we dropped on Hiroshima left them vaporized
And I heard some Christian sing, what would Jesus do
What if you were on the wrong side, would he point the gun at you
And they read through every word of Matthew, Mark and Luke and John
So they could see if killing was the side that Christ was on

(Chorus)

And they separate the church and state
And keep God out of school
So our governments can educate
Based upon their rules
But people start to wonder if our politics make sense
When religion is our best excuse for national defense
And when our citizens start saying that our wars are not okay
And Washington keeps telling them God loves the USA
And they teach us history so we can learn from our mistakes
And this generation wants to know how many years it takes
To change the way we treat our neighbors all across the land
Cause if we don’t change our hearts we repeat the past again

I Remember
When I was a younger man
We were soldiers
Fighting in a foreign land
Now we’re older
And it’s happening again

(Instrumental break)
When my grandpa finished talking
We went walking, he and I
I was thinking of the future and how scared I was to die
Now my best friend’s overseas in the desert where it’s dry
Fighting for our country and I need a reason why

I Remember
When he was a younger man
Now he’s a solider
Fighting in a foreign land
Now we’re older
God bring him home again