03-13-19
I don’t know what to say.
In all honesty, I don’t know if I’ve ever watched or listened to this song without starting to cry. There is such profound emotion within every beat. There are so few songs that I have to be so cognizant in listening to because it can and will change my thoughts unless I stop it.
How can something so morbid result in something so hauntingly beautiful? In this dance-pop love song, Anohni identifies with a young Afghan girl praying for the same fate that has taken her friends…her family… her entire world. Destruction via a drone strike. Destruction at the hands of the greatest nation the world has ever seen. The nation that fights for “truth, liberty, and justice.”
The paradoxical elements at play within Drone Bomb Me are common tools utilized by Anohni who has continuously sought out a platform for her activism and has used the creation of her music as a major outlet.
The shame is rooted in feeling like a passive-participant to a system that supports something as destructive as drone bombing. The concept of its existence spurred out of saving lives, at least American lives, in that soldiers don’t have to be sent out into the field, what has resulted are countless deaths of innocent civilians and bystanders due to poor intelligence and willful negligence. This is information we have access to, this is information that administrations have corroborated. We have fucked up, and we continue to do so. It’s hard to say “we” but again “passive-participant.” The shame is real, I don’t think you’re an awful person for maybe not feeling it; maybe you’ve never thought about it, maybe it doesn’t even matter to you…it’s hard to imagine people on the other side of the world feeling shame for drone bombing you or me. It doesn’t matter that we may be innocent we still come from the country that has attacked theirs, how is it any different? How would they not be in the “right” if given the opportunity?
The wars we fight today, are wars that we have waged for decades. What purpose have they served aside from padding the coffers of the military industrial complex and the vast networks of wealthy global oligarchs that have generationally profited from war?
Lyrics:
[Chorus 1]
Drone bomb me
Blow me from the mountains, and into the sea
Blow me from the side of the mountain
Blow my head off, explode my crystal guts
Lay my purple on the grass
[Verse 1]
I have a glint in my eye, I think I wanna die
I wanna die
I wanna be the apple of your eye
[Chorus 2]
So, drone bomb me, drone bomb me
Blow me from the mountains, and into the sea
Blow me from the side of the mountain
Blow my head off, explode my crystal guts
Lay my purple on the grass
[Verse 2]
Let me be the first
I’m not so innocent
Let me be the one
The one that you choose from above
After all, I’m partly to blame
[Chorus 2]
So, drone bomb me, I’m partly to blame
Blow me from the mountains, and into the sea
I’m partly to blame
Blow me from the mountains, and into the sea
I wanna die
I’m not so innocent
I’m partly to blame
Blow my head off
Explode my crystal guts
[Outro]
My blood, my blood, my blood
Choose me, choose me, choose me tonight
Choose me
Let me be the one
The one that you choose tonight
Choose me tonight, tonight