21 Guns by green day |
Lyrics
Do you know what's worth fighting for?
When it's not worth dying for? Does it take your breath away and you feel yourself suffocating? Does the pain weigh out the pride? And you look for a place to hide? Did someone break your heart inside, you're in ruins One, 21 Guns Lay down your arms Give up the fight One, 21 Guns Throw up your arms into the sky You and I ... When you're at the end of the road And you lost all sense of control And your thoughts have taken their toll When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul Your faith walks on broken glass and the hangover doesn't pass Nothing's ever built to last, you're in ruins |
One, 21 Guns
Lay down your arms Give up the fight One, 21 Guns Throw up your arms into the sky You and I ... Did you try to live on your own? When you burned down the house and home? Did you stand too close to the fire? Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone When it's time to live and let die And you can't get another try Something inside this heart has died, you're in ruins One, 21 Guns Lay down your arms Give up the fight One, 21 Guns Throw up your arms into the sky One, 21 Guns Lay down your arms Give up the fight One, 21 Guns Throw up your arms into the sky You and I |
analysis
This song poses a lot of questions that it wants you to answer throughout the song, mostly pertaining to the question of whether or not we should keep going on and fighting more and more wars. This song is anti-war, as can be shown in the repeating lyrics “Lay down your arms/ Give up the fight.” This song was written about both Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that we need to just stop going into wars. The second verse in particular seems to talk about the impact of war on the individual. The lyrics start out with “when you’re at the end of the road” which could mean the end of a person’s deployment in the war. This lyric could also mean that you died. However, with the way the rest of the verse goes on, I believe it mostly means the first meaning. The verse going on to say “and your thoughts have taken their toll”, which to me is talking about PTSD and how the thoughts of what you do just keep going in your mind. The verse then ends with “you’re in ruins”, pretty much summing up how a lot of veterans enter back into civilian life. This song is just saying that we need to be done with our conflicts. We spend so much time fighting, but we should just “give up the fight.” I think that this song presents a lot of interesting points. At some time, we do need to just stop, and come home to our families. Also, with the lack of veteran support in our country, we do end up with a lot of people who fought for us who are now just in ruins from physical injuries, mental injuries, lack of jobs, and just the transition back to life.