Peace in our time

Working Man's Cafe is the only music I'm listening to these days. Just over and over until I can sing along with each song. I don't have time to write the all encompassing review yet and can't promise to get it written until the fall play is up and running.

So tonight I'm contemplating this song that might be an anthem addressing global conflicts, but instead is a wry take on a relationship:

Hey girl, let's begin again and try to help ourselves
We're like weary warriors who just came back from hell
You can keep your territory, I will stay in mine
Carefully negotiate and leave this battle behind

Then the mighty chorus with a magnificent build:

All we deserve is some peace in our time
Unconditional love is better
Peace in our time

The phrase "Peace in our time" makes me consider how many years of my life on this planet have coexisted with some kind of ongoing war being waged. The background and soundtrack to my life: wars in Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Nicaragua, Grenada, Iraq. Wars in the ghetto and wars against poverty and drugs.

And at home behind closed doors, wars with a significant other:

The two of us can't take it
Gotta have a truce so we can start
To put it together
Otherwise we're gonna fall apart

The singer is one who has been down this road before:

It really doesn't matter
'cos the world keeps going round
just like a roller coaster
If you let it, it will crush you down

The song maintains its interest by the continual interweaving of the personal story with the imagery of global conflicts, and then ending with a gut-wrenching image:

I'm tearing up the bunch of
Angry letters that you sent
Peace in our time