More of the Same

 If you take a deeper look at this story you can see the monotony of their lives as soldiers. “If you weren’t humping, you were waiting. I remember the monotony. Digging foxholes. Slapping mosquitos. The sun and the heat and the endless paddies. Even in the deep bush, where you could die any number of ways, the war was nakedly and aggressively boring.”

Each day had a certain rhythm to it. They woke up, when on patrol or out on an ambush that had been ordered. Later in the evening they would settle in at designated coordinates radioed to them by a higher ranking official, pull out their letters and pictures of loved ones and stand guard in their foxholes. Sometimes the days and nights included the death of a fellow soldier but all of their days were basically the same. As an illustration of this idea that everything is the same even though it’s different I chose the song Blue on Black by Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

I chose this song for a couple of reasons. If you listen to the rhythm of the guitar you notice a methodic riff that simply repeats throughout the song. The simplicity of the music may call most listeners to focus on the lyrics but in this context the lyrics have less to do with the meaning and relationship to the idea of monotony at war.

The other reason I chose this song is because I believe the lyrics of the chorus actually do reflect the idea that no matter what you do on a given day each day is the same as the one before and will be the same as the one after it. “Whisper on a scream doesn’t change a thing.” I wonder how many soldiers have whispered their final words over the screams of battle.

“Hey, blue on black, tears on a river
Push on a shove it don't mean much
Joker on jack, match on a fire
Cold on ice a dead man's touch
Whisper on a scream doesn't change a thing
Don't bring you back
Blue on black oh yeah, blue on black”