Song of the Week Peacemaker

[taybay]

Personally I love this song but half the people I talked to about it loved it and the other half hated it...I guess it's a love/hate relationship kinda thing.

But yeah. I think it's super catchy. Probably one of my favorites off the album, but almost every song is my favorite haha. Nice spanish flair to it...lol

[Xoram]

I think it's a very male song, it channels machismo - the 'girl at the end of the seranade' is a love-object, the 'love' conditional on reciprocation. Coming back to the link with Last Night On Earth, 'all my love', it juxtaposes the vision of love as something pure between two intact beings with the flawed passion that says 'I gave myself to you, now you owe me something'. What's in love is now in debt - it's crossed over to where the loss of this investment is the loss of pride, and it's unbearable, to the point where it becomes the opposite of love.

Oh yes, you've got a very interesting point there. It's a very "male" (and common) thing in a relantionship to expect the woman to submit and to abandon everything for her partner and the "investment" he's made. This song speaks of those who cannot bear the idea of a someone leaving them. Of finding love and fullfilment elsewhere. "You thought I was a write-off, you better think again" is a very violent statement, that suggests that leaving is not an option, that even when happiness is no longer part of the equation, leaving is a punishable trangession, that depending of the mental stability of the other individual, may end up costing your own life.

[radioactive]

I love peacemaker one of my favourites from 21st Century Breakdown

[Marlee]

I know a lot of people who say this is their favorite song

it's a really good song for sure

[justcause]

Oh yes, you've got a very interesting point there. It's a very "male" (and common) thing in a relantionship to expect the woman to submit and to abandon everything for her partner and the "investment" he's made. This song speaks of those who cannot bear the idea of a someone leaving them. Of finding love and fullfilment elsewhere. "You thought I was a write-off, you better think again" is a very violent statement, that suggests that leaving is not an option, that even when happiness is no longer part of the equation, leaving is a punishable trangession, that depending of the mental stability of the other individual, may end up costing your own life.

I think it goes into personal relationships and beyond - to me, the stand-off/write-off thing is the guy who goes postal, purging his feelings of insignificance with a 'spectacular'. Here is his revenge on a world that disregards him, of proving something with his death that he couldn't prove with his life. The orgasm-spasm is the bliss of letting go of all of it, and here it resonates with the dark side of 21 Guns - 'do you know what's worth fighting for, if it's not worth dying for?' There's fight and there's surrender here - to fight on for something beautiful and real, to be surrendered to how that will come, or to see only the darkness and to surrender to that. At the heart of every one of these songs - these songs that so searingly, honestly see all of the shades of passion - is the purest, shining love. It's what's worth fighting for - it's what's worth living for.

[jos_whatsername]

i have to admit that this isn't one of my favourites .

i like it, seriously it's a good song, but i don't have any personal relationship with it..

I just think from 21st Century Breakdown, peacemaker doesn't stand out.

And that's probably why I never got into it so much.

anyway, my favourite lyrics have to be "I feed off the weakness with all my love"

[whatshername0303]

Great choice! I like this song...It's different of the others. Now, I will have it in my head for the rest of the day.

And I have only one word: SERENADE!

[*_Whatsername_*]

I love this song too. It does stand out for being different (and it really does sound Spanish!) but I think that's a good thing.

[J'net]

I think it goes into personal relationships and beyond - to me, the stand-off/write-off thing is the guy who goes postal, purging his feelings of insignificance with a 'spectacular'. Here is his revenge on a world that disregards him, of proving something with his death that he couldn't prove with his life. The orgasm-spasm is the bliss of letting go of all of it, and here it resonates with the dark side of 21 Guns - 'do you know what's worth fighting for, if it's not worth dying for?' There's fight and there's surrender here - to fight on for something beautiful and real, to be surrendered to how that will come, or to see only the darkness and to surrender to that. At the heart of every one of these songs - these songs that so searingly, honestly see all of the shades of passion - is the purest, shining love. It's what's worth fighting for - it's what's worth living for.

You two (justcause and Xoram) have provoked so many thoughts in my tiny brain with your discussion.

Here's one of them: I think there's an element in this song of the innocent bystanders suffering from the fallout (e.g. "death to the girl/ones at the end of the serenade"). If looked at from the point of view of a lover seeking revenge, I can picture him singing her a serenade and then killing her. Or, if I see the picture of the cantina or saloon that this song conjures up, I imagine the "girl" (probably the singer) or the "ones" who are standing around listening to the serenade getting caught in the crossfire when the banditos or outlaws burst into the room with all barrels blazing.

This is taking the words very literally, but what they remind me of in relation to the world we live in today is, for example, the kids in the day care center attached to the Oklahoma City Federal Building on the day it was bombed.

Thanks everyone for your contributions to this discussion. I've been quite fascinated by the thoughts of everyone here and the consequent thoughts that woke me up in the middle of the night.

[farley drexel hatcher]

Although this is definitely one of my favourites, I have never been able to find a story in it, so these posts on here have made my head spin a bit. I still can't really see any clear story there, if i'm honest.

[green day is]

This is one of my favourite songs off the album. It always has been, ever since Mike said in that Q (I think it was Q) interview forever ago that they had a 'carnival/gypsy-sounding song' on the album. I found it and VOILA!

Liz and I also tried to get Billie to play it in Paris. The bit when Billie walks out strumming his guitar really quickly before he starts When It's Time/LNOE sounds really similar to Peacemaker and I had a bit of hope that we would get to hear it. But

Anyway this song kicks ass and I don't appreciate people who do not enjoy it.

I think the carnival/gypsy one was supposed to be Little Girl, not Peacemaker (if someone's already said this, I didn't catch it because I don't feel like going through the thread).

[Bastard of 1967]

Here is his revenge on a world that disregards him, of proving something with his death that he couldn't prove with his life. The orgasm-spasm is the bliss of letting go of all of it, and here it resonates with the dark side of 21 Guns - 'do you know what's worth fighting for, if it's not worth dying for?'

And with that I think you just found another interconnection in the album that I'd overlooked (or maybe was aware of on some level but the big "light bulb" hadn't gone off for me yet)..... turn the lyrics of 21 Guns on its head there and you get: nothing is worth fighting for, struggling with, etc. if you're not willing to give all of yourself, everything, to it without reservation, without holding anything back. In a sense I think that also speaks to one of the big themes in the album that you can't fix anything external to yourself until you deal with what's going on in your own mind.

I think there's an element in this song of the innocent bystanders suffering from the fallout (e.g. "death to the girl/ones at the end of the serenade").

Two words sum that up: collateral damage. You go postal, you don't just purge your own enemy from your universe -- there are innocents who will suffer, and in some cases pay dearly -- as a consequence of your actions.