Song picture
Albert Ball
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Albert Ball was an 18 year old fighter pilot who died in the first world War.
ballad social commentary world war i
Artist picture
pop, classic rock, old pop, beatles
In my teens, I wrote songs like a madman. In one year, when I was 16, I produced 11 albums worth of material. During the 6 year period between my 16th and 21st year, I produced approximately 700 songs. I have a hard time believing that figure myself, but at one point in my early twenties I counted them up and it came out to something slightly in excess of that figure. Since I've long since lost all the recordings and most of the written documentation, I can't go back and check the figures any longer. Now, admittedly, much of the material was truly, utterly terrible! It had to be; I started writing with a guitar in hand before I knew how to play chords! In fact, the first four albums were all noise, some of it very interesting noise -- at least we thought so. I say WE because I wasn't working alone; my best friend Steve MacKay was my partner in musical mayhem. Our band was called Garbage and that pretty much says it all. In fact, we knew we were horrible and reveled in the fact. Our attitude towards our music was interesting. We thought we were geniuses, but we also were scornful. The attitude was similar to how we felt about movies. We loved cheese. Japanese horror movies, Charlie Chan flicks -- anything horrible, we loved. As to our recordings, I knew every nuance of sound on those early tapes intimately well, because I listened to them endlessly. The first track we recorded was called Toilet Symphony. It had three principal parts. The first involved these soaring electronic sound effects we had recorded at The Ontario Science Centre; the second part involved sounds and music speeded up four or five times, so that it sounded like the flickering tinkling of a wind chime. The final portion was a native choral group chanting. You can see why that track -and indeed most of those tracks - are not now in existence.
Song Info
Genre
Pop Dance-Pop
Charts
Peak #32
Peak in subgenre #13
Author
W Cameron Bastedo
Rights
W. Cameron Bastedo
Uploaded
July 10, 2023
Track Files
MP3
MP3 8.9 MB 320 kbps 3:53
Lossless
WAV 39.2 MB
Story behind the song
I became so interested in WWI aces that I wrote an entire rock opera on the topic called 'Wings for Fools'. I probably will never record the rest of the songs that I remember, but this one I really loved.
Lyrics
Albert Ball In the year 1914, the short peace that there had been, was broken by the sound, of the fighting all around. War was here again, all the killin', all the pain, and the women broken hearted, for the men who die in vain, and as they die, I hear them cry: 'Tell me, God, why this war? What is all the fightin' for? What's it for? What's it for? War is waged in hell, in the earth and sea as well, and war is in the sky, where the fighter pilot dies, but the bravest of the bold, and the greatest I've been told, was a boy hardly 18, he's the best there's ever been, his name was Ball, Albert Ball; Seems the young have to die, while the old spin their lies, Tell me why? Tell me why? Well, the bravest of them all, was a boy named Albert Ball, who flew his Se-5 across the sky to stay alive; He had to do his share, of the killin' done up there 'til every dawn's a torture, every day's a new nightmare, and as he fought, I think he thought: 'Tell me, why is this war? What is all the fighting for? What's it for? What's if for? All the stolen lives, the many widowed wives, and the little orphan children, it can sure play on your mind, 'til one day in a fight, he decided it weren't right, and German shot him down, young Albert lost his life; I ask once more, what is it for? Seems the young people die, While the old tell their lies, Tell me why? Tell me why? Well, the bravest of them all, was this boy named Albert Ball, who flew his Se-5 across the sky to stay alive. But the bravest of the bold, is now lying still and cold. Life is bought so dearly, but how cheaply it is sold, I watch them die, and hear the cry: Will we all die in war? Tell me, God, what's it for? What's it for? What's it for?
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