child soldier music2 alice seo

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There is another song related to the theme child soldier. It is “No Bravery” by James Blunt. James Blunt is not an African American who experienced being a child soldier. Instead, he is an English singer-song writer. He traveled many places around the world and had great passion in music. He wrote a song called ‘No bravery’ and this song has a different feel than the songs of Emmanuel Jal and K’naan. Unlike the other singers who focused on the personal experience, James criticized the society and the politics instead. He was involved in the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization, best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic disease. This mainly originated from his earlier experience as an officer in the Life Guards and a reconnaissance regiment of the British Army. He also served under NATO in Kosovo during the conflict in 1999.
The lyrics of the song serves to send a negative opinion about the U.S. Watching a video from a website, I saw a flash of President Bush whenever the lyrics said ‘he’s been here’. It was pretty evident that the singer was portraying the United States and the cruelty of the nation’s government and the system of theirs.
He uses the words such as ‘tears’, ‘graves’, ‘no bravery’, ‘only sadness’, ‘disgrace’, ‘burnt’, ‘death’, ‘blind’, ‘afraid’, ‘cry’, ‘cut’, ‘raped’, ‘hate’, and ‘despair’ creates a depressing and pathetic emotion to the situation and causes the audience to think more about the issue.
I was listening to the music several times to get more idea about the situation and I felt some kind of anger toward the U.S. government. It was a different feeling than I had before. I usually felt the sadness and the sympathy toward the children, but this time, I felt the resentment toward the society and the system. I think it is mainly because the singer focused on the criticizing about the ignorance and the indifference of the people around the world.