Song Lyric Sunday: Give Us Peace In Our Time

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For this week on Song Lyric Sunday Jim has set us the task of playing songs about war and/or peace, again at the  suggestion of Nancy, aka The Sicilian Storyteller. His post War And Peace gives the background to this but, unusually, he hasn’t made any suggestions this week for possible bands or songs – I guess the field was too wide! As the song I’m featuring wasn’t a hit single in the US and the album was only a minor chart performer over there I think I’m reasonably safe from duplication from across the pond, and am hoping no one here plays it either. This is what I’m going with today:

And here are its lyrics:

Who holds the money, who holds the needWho holds the strings of misery or the purse of greedAnd the gunmen reap while the gangsters sowAnd law is cheap when the smugglers go(Give us peace) Give us peace in our time(Give us peace) Give us peace in our timeWhile I have a life to liveThen I have no life to give(Give us peace) Give us peace in our time
 
In sun-kissed rooms in city slumsMinds are restless till the airmail comesFrom the forest floor to the western mindLike a chat show topic on a party lineAnd the hardest love of all is to forgiveAs the world comes tumbling down(Give us peace) Give us peace in our time(Give us peace) Give us peace in our timeWhile I have a life to liveThen I have no life to give(Give us peace) Give us peace in our time
 
Let all the rain come down on blind desireLike a thundercloud that holds a prairie fireI hear the blame and I see the causeA stronger voice and a stronger lawBut buyers buy and sellers sellPublic consumption of a private hell(Give us peace) Give us peace in our time(Give us peace) Give us peace in our timeWhile I have a life to liveThen I have no life to give
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: S. Adamson
Peace in Our Time lyrics © BMG Rights Management
 
That is a song which displays its anger at war, what it stands for, and the commercial gains some make at the expense of the ultimate sacrifice from others. Don’t be taken in by the catchy chorus: this is a powerful indictment of those who take us into wars. Peace In Our Time was the title track of an album by the Scottish rock band Big Country, which was released in September 1988 and got to #9 in the UK and #160 in the US, being awarded Silver Disc status in the UK. This was the third song taken from it as a single, in January 1989, reaching a fairly lowly #39 in the UK, though it did make #16 in Ireland. Big Country never set the charts alight here, though they did have a #1 album and two more in the top three, and all but one of the twenty seven singles they released made the UK charts. They disbanded in 2001 after the suicide – at the age of 43 – of Stuart Adamson, their leader, lead guitarist and main songwriter – another sad loss of those who succumbed to the pressure of the music business.
 
Wikipedia quotes Stuart from a 1990 interview with Melody Maker magazine, in which he  described the song as a “very Sixties feel protest song, naive but I did it anyway.” In another interview, with Sounds magazine, he said “I do feel music can be more than a three-minute adrenaline rush, but there’s a great danger in viewing a song with too much weight. Peace in Our Time was written with irony, but you can be too smart-assed for your own good. It was called a plea for peace when it was really much smaller than that.” I think he was being too hard on himself, and the lyrics, together with the video, support the more generous interpretation I give the song. 
 
As the theme for today is songs of war or peace I thought I’d do a little research, as the phrase ‘peace in our time’ is well known over here, thanks to a frequent misquoting of the then Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, from his 30 September 1938 remarks in London concerning the Munich Agreement and the subsequent Anglo-German Declaration – he actually said “peace for our time,”  which has gone down in history for its bitter ironic value: less than a year after the agreement, Hitler’s invasion of Poland began World War II. The words were already familiar to the British public, anyway, from their appearance in the Book of Common Prayer. The phrase is a popular song title, too: I came across at least three other completely different ones, by Elvis Costello, Eddie Money, and Cliff Richard, but none of them come remotely close to this one for me.
 
I think Stuart was on the right path, though. Who wouldn’t want peace? With the current events in Ukraine and Gaza and elsewhere in the world, it might feel naïve to wish for peace, but that has to be right, doesn’t it? Politicians on massive ego trips and large companies making armaments shouldn’t be allowed to dictate to us in the way they do.
 
I was going to give you a second song today – Al Stewart’s amazing Roads To Moscow – but have decided to concentrate on just the one. But I’ll leave you with an acoustic performance by Big Country – in stripping the song down to its basics they really bring out the hurt and the power behind it:
 
 
See you again on Tuesday.

34 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday: Give Us Peace In Our Time”

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  2. Wow, Clive. What a perfect choice for our times, but then … as I listened, I thought it was also reminiscent in some ways of protest songs back in the Vietnam War days. I guess it really is true that “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. The 2nd video was ‘unavailable’, but no matter … I enjoyed the first quite well. Thank you.

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    • I’m glad you enjoyed the one you could watch! It’s a pity about the second: a stripped down acoustic version of the song, and the power of Stuart Adamson’s vocals really enhances the lyrics.

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  7. Hello Clive, I enjoyed the regular version compared to the acoustic take on this song ( but nice to compare both) – and the regular version has that nice long musical opening – with almost a fully minute of music to almost prep us for the lyrics and message to come our way.
    Also, seeing some of the snapshots of the subway and streets gives us a nice flashback.

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    • Hi Yvette, good to see you again. I’ve loved this song and the album ever since they first came out. The acoustic version was a bonus, as I think it really highlights the power of the lyrics. Glad you enjoyed it 😊

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  8. The acoustic version highlights the lyrics.
    ‘Peace for/in our time’ must have sounded jolly optimistic even back in ’38 when uttered by Nev. Less than a year later it was a hollow Chamberlame joke.
    Everyone talks about peace but the munitions firms and the egomaniac dictators keep on fighting for their rights to fight for peace- on their terms, and inside someone else’s borders. Sad, but it seems unlikely to change.

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    • They are clearer in that, aren’t they, which is why I included it. I wasn’t around in 1938 but I guess that anything which offered a promise of avoiding another world war was something people wanted to believe in.

      We still have dictators and unscrupulous business, and I fear it is getting ever worse.

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    • Sorry to hear that. Does this version work?

      I’ve been told that the Al Stewart one I linked to isn’t available in the US but there is another that does. Going well so far, isn’t it 🤣

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  12. When I first started hosting Song Lyric Sunday, I did make suggestions and some of the participants told me to keep my suggestions to myself, so I usually refrain from doing that, I enjoyed the Big Country song. and you were right about people from across the pond probably not knowing it, but I may have heard it before, because something in it seemed familiar. Your second video Al Stewart’s Roads To Moscow seems to be unavailable over here, but I found it on YouTube. I wasn’t sure if this was the same Al Stewart that did Year of the Cat, but as soon as I heard his voice, I knew it was.

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    • I know you do it sometimes but not every week. Always good to take note of your ‘customers’ though!

      I think PIOT is one of those songs that sounds familiar, especially if you’ve heard any of their others: they had a distinctive style. I’m sorry the link didn’t work but glad you found it. I don’t often play songs that long, but as it is such an epic I tried to give people the option.

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      • And there are times when an Artist can be too preachy or judgmental in their approach, which can backfire…the simple honesty and artistry of this band is what makes it work – love all of your posts

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      • It was interesting to me that Stuart Adamson downplayed this one – too modest for his own good, perhaps? I think it gets its message across well. Thank you for those kind words, much appreciated 😊

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