Richard Thompson
A soldier's-eye monologue from the Iraq War, delivered in the blunt, blackly funny voice of an American GI who narrates the…
war and mortality dehumanization of soldiers media spin and propaganda
King Crimson
A blast of distorted vocals and jagged riffing that catalogues the horrors of modern civilization in fragmented, almost…
dehumanization war and violence political corruption
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk turn a numbing exercise in counting into a protest song, framing the reduction of a person to a numeral as a kind of…
dehumanization by bureaucracy loss of identity surveillance and control
XTC
XTC dresses up an anti-militarist satire as a jaunty, whistleable pop song, mocking career soldiers who crave conflict for its…
militarism and glory-seeking satire of authority boredom as a driver of violence
Joan Baez
A cyclical folk lament that traces flowers into girls, girls into wives, husbands into soldiers, soldiers into graves, and…
war and its cost cyclical futility loss and mourning