DESCRIPTION:
I see people drinking beer on deck-chairs on the sand,
Watching bombs drop from the sky and cheering as they land.

I see them sitting back and watching rockets flying overhead
And as they’re counting the explosions I wonder if they count the dead.

I see people burying the living and hanging up the dead.
I see a picture of a little boy holding up a dead man’s head.

I see people stranded on a mountain dying of terror and of thirst
And when it comes to suffering it’s always the women and children first.

And the boat is always full when they mention refugees
While bodies wash up on our beaches and boats are sinking in our seas.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

I see the wreckage of a plane scattered in a field
But the possessions of the passengers are just another thing to steal.

I see twisted metal and children’s toys and clothes thrown out of open bags,
And the resting places of the victims marked by makeshift white flags.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

It’s easier to believe
Than it is to think.
It’s easier to shoot
Than it is to speak.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

I see the freedom fighter mercenaries terrorise those they’re fighting for,
The ones caught up in the crossfire when the mighty settle scores.

I see the lines on all the maps drawn by empires in the sand
Blurring in and out of focus and getting moved by bloody hands.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

I see all the planet’s little wars joining hands and strangling nations
I see all the little brush fires turning into conflagrations.

I see wars fought over books written centuries ago
No one knows the difference anymore between what they believe and what they know.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

It’s the things we believe in
Or the things we don’t.
It’s all the innocents
giving up hope.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

I can cancel all the newspapers, cut off the TV and the web,
But there’s no ceasefire in the conflict that’s raging in my head.

The nightmares run together, am I sleeping or awake,
Just another new atrocity every single day.

When I close my eyes at night in the refuge of my bed
I see everything turning burnt-out black, except the ground that’s turning red.

I’ll write some kind of song about it, hoping that it helps,
But I’m just a middle-class white western man feeling sorry for himself.
Another middle-class white western man feeling sorry for himself.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

It’s the gods we pray to
Or the ones we doubt.
The ones we bow down to
And the ones we wipe out.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

We can use god to justify
Anything we do.
Are there too many gods in the world
Or are there just too few?

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

We’re all in this together
We’re all in this alone.

(Stephen Gerard Hiscox, 2014)