Excerpts from BW&BK's Maiden Story
BW&BK: There’s a big difference between the songs about war on this album, like ‘The Longest Day’ and ‘These Colours Don’t Run’, and the likes of ‘Aces High’ and ‘The Trooper’. Has age made you approach the subject in a more serious way?Harris: “When you’re a young kid and write a song like ‘Aces High’, it’s all about adrenalin and that’s the way stuff comes out, but now we’re older it’s slightly different. Most of the songs that we’ve written about war aren’t glorifying war in any way. We’re just trying to get across that there’s a big difference between young boys playing with toy soldiers and all the talk about fighting for glory or whatever, and the reality of being a soldier fighting in a war, which is horrendous. Bruce wrote the lyrics for ‘The Longest Day’ so I can’t say what he was specifically getting at. Bruce was in the Territorial Army himself, so he has a better idea of what’s involved than I do, I think. I respect people who go to war. There’s many reasons why people have to go to war and some of them are good and some of them are terrible, but these kids join the army and they have to go. It doesn’t matter whether they agree with the reasons for fighting or
not. If you’re a soldier and you’re told to go, you go. I’ve always had respect for the military because they have to face these awful situations and it must be pretty scary, even though they’re trained and they probably want to go and do their job. It’s pretty terrifying just thinking about it.”
BW&BK: I guess we’re all pretty damn lucky to be able to listen to or perform songs about war without having to experience it first hand...
Harris: “That’s true. During the first Gulf War, we found out that one of the Queen’s regiments were playing ‘Run To The Hills’ as they were going into battle. I thought that was amazing. Not in a positive way necessarily, and it’s kind of scary at the same time, but I was quite proud of that. It gives me goose-bumps just thinking about it. I’ve got goose-bumps now! I suppose when I was a kid I was always taught to be proud of the flag and the whole British thing,
doing your duty, doing what needs to be done. I suppose some of our songs are trying to put you in that position, asking how you’d feel in that situation. It’s important to think about these things, isn’t it?”