Body of War: Sounds That Inspire an Iraq Veteran 0
A musical insight into the experience of an American soldier
 By Jeremy Azevedo |
“Body of War: Sounds That Inspire an Iraq Veteran” is the soundtrack to last year’s award winning documentary of Thomas Young, an Iraq War veteran paralyzed from the chest down by a bullet to the spine. The documentary follows Thomas’s struggle to cope with his newfound disability, as he emerges as a powerful voice in the anti-war movement. |
The soundtrack serves as a collection of music that he and his friends listened to before, during and after their service, to help them understand and cope with their situation as best they could. Because they have access to so little comfort on tour in Iraq, these young men take their music very seriously, and you may be surprised by many of the choices that they have made to represent them. If you’re looking for boneheaded “ass-kicking” rock in the vein of Saliva and Disturbed, you won’t find it here.
Thomas Young
However, this isn’t the Vietnam War we’re talking about here, and there’s no draft to really whip every man, woman and child into a bonafide anti-war frenzy. As a result, the legitimacy of some of the artist’s sentiment is at times questionable. Protest music from this decade is mostly relegated to shallow sloganeering and anti-corporation dogma, rather than, you know, a personal account of experience or perhaps even some thought being given to the actual people involved. This goes double for rap, such that the struggle to rhyme every other sentence seems of takes precedence over the coherency of the message. Compared to what most people consider to be “protest music”, i.e. the music of the 60s, today’s stuff is like a paper tiger, fierce is appearance when viewed broadly, but ultimately 2-dimensional when scrutinized more closely.
