Needs To Be Said, Another Friend Dead

Can we start with a universal foundation  
That children are not born with a disposition to war  
And science's great marvels are often distorted  
They are distorted, contorted, and refigured  
That is the cruel property of time  
 
And "I've been waiting for something to happen  
For a week or a month or a year  
With the blood in the ink of the headlines  
And the sound of the crowd in my ear  
You might ask what it takes to remember  
When you know that you've seen it before  
Where a government lies to a people  
And a country is drifting to war"  
 
The biggest myth and spell that I was under  
was that my party would stay true to seeking peace  
that with the right label we could have faith in a partisan song  
now I have found that there is a bigger driving force  
and the search for mutual understanding can be long  
 
"But who are the ones that we call our friends--  
These governments killing their own?  
Or the people who finally can't take any more  
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone  
There are lives in the balance  
There are people under fire  
There are children at the cannons  
And there is blood on the wire"  
 
Now we can dehumanize warfare's agents  
So that the attacking for has no human face  
But on the other side still have childless parents  
For them is their any amazing grace  
The epitome of human tragedy  
Conflicts accumulate as every war cry is sung  
I am sick of the repeated motif  
The elderly having to bury their young...  
 
 
 Quotes courtesy of "Lives In The Balance"/ Jackson Browne