We ran a news item about songs concerning battles... Meat Loaf vs. The Alamo Battle of New Orleans Mr. Custer And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda The White House Burned And received the following from MagWeb.com member Alan Saunders: To continue you search for songs which mention, or are about, specific battles I submit for your attention 'Common Ground' by British progresive rockers IQ and released on the album 'Nomzamo' in 1987. This song is about the Somme and the the lyrics are: Here we are, Alive and free Far away in time from our darkest day That took our young and brave From the cradle to the grave 70 years ago on July one, 1916 on the Somme The enemies had never seen Fighting like this before such a simple plan-- How could any German man survive through that ordeal? Company 'A' to Company 'B' "Morale is high here, sir, but I don't think it's safe to go" Company 'A' from Company 'B' "Mister you have your orders and you must obey" So the first line rose, and the first line fell And a poet who survived later wrote about A "Sunlit vision of Hell" And "Larks singing" Because after all it's just Another summer's day in France And the Tommies on the Somme sang "We are fighting to turn No-man's land into A common ground A common ground Marston Moor I also forgot the appalling 'The Battle of Marston Moor' by the Electric Light Orchestra. Great stuff! And back to the 'battle in pop song' theme. Keep 'em coming folks.--RL Back to 2nd Quarter 2004 List of News Items Back to Master List of News Items Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com