The Sun Is Also a Warrior
Leslie Fish Lyrics
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One left footprints, the other left none.
One was a man who no man obeys;
The other a god from the ancient days.
"Look," said the man, "how my kind make war.
I summonned you here to ask what for."
"For wealth or land," the god replies,
"For life, or freedom, or some king's lies."
"The sun is also a warrior.
Knowledge can also destroy.
Nor can the kindest will,
Preserve you from the kill.
Not all of wisdom brings joy."
"Four of those five," the first one said,
Are not enough to appease the dead.
To save my world all this strife must cease,
So now I bid you to conjure peace."
The god said "Yes. Though it grieves me sore,
For I was also a god of war,
And I remember what you forget,
Four of those five you may still regret."
CHORUS
He raised his voice and he raised his hand.
All strife stopped at the god's command.
No voice ventured an angry word,
No hand struck and no weapon stirred.
In time, the man called the old god back.
"Look," he cried, "what my people lack!
One lord rules over all the earth,
And we're all his slaves from the hour of birth."
CHORUS
"Look, he owns all wealth, and he owns all land,
We starve and die under his command.
He speaks the truth and he gives us peace,
But all that I hope for is our release."
The old god said, "This is what you willed.
For only thus is your wish fulfilled.
War's five sources I took away,
Yet I will give four of them back today."
CHORUS
He raised his hand and his voice once more,
And all the world overturned in war.
And when the last of those fires let fall,
There was no lord in the world at all.
"Go rebuild now," the old god said,
"Feed the living and bury the dead,
And remember this when you speak of war,
And think upon what is worth fighting for."
CHORUS
The song "The Sun Is Also a Warrior" by Leslie Fish tells the story of a conversation between a man and an ancient god on a beach. The man shows the god how humans make war, and asks why they do it. The god responds that people fight for various reasons, such as wealth, land, or freedom. The chorus emphasizes that knowledge can be destructive and that not all wisdom brings joy. The man then pleads with the god to create peace in the world, which the god reluctantly agrees to, despite the fact that he used to be a god of war. After a brief period of peace, the man calls the god back and shows him that humans are slaves to one lord, who owns all the wealth and land. The god grants the man's wish by giving back four of the five sources of war, leading to another global conflict that ultimately makes everyone equal by destroying all lords. The god reminds the survivors to rebuild and remember the lessons of war.
Line by Line Meaning
Two men walked on the beach in the sun.
Two people walked on the beach in the sunlight.
One left footprints, the other left none.
One person left footprints on the sand, while the other did not.
One was a man who no man obeys;
One person was an ordinary man who did not command obedience from anyone.
The other a god from the ancient days.
The other person was a god from the old times.
"Look," said the man, "how my kind make war.
The ordinary person said: "Look how humans engage in wars."
I summoned you here to ask what for."
I called you here to inquire about the reasons for it."
"For wealth or land," the god replies,
The god responded: "Either for material gain or territorial expansion."
"For life, or freedom, or some king's lies."
"For defending life or freedom, or for some king's deceitful words."
CHORUS:
Chorus
"The sun is also a warrior.
"The sun is also capable of causing destruction and conflicts.
Knowledge can also destroy.
Knowledge also has the power to create destruction.
Nor can the kindest will,
Even the most benevolent intentions,
Preserve you from the kill.
Cannot save you from death.
Not all of wisdom brings joy."
Not all of knowledge brings happiness.
"Four of those five," the first one said,
The ordinary person said: "Among the five reasons you mentioned,"
Are not enough to appease the dead.
Four of them are not sufficient to calm the souls of the deceased.
To save my world all this strife must cease,
To save the world, all conflicts must end.
So now I bid you to conjure peace."
I ask you to bring about peace.
The god says "Yes. Though it grieves me sore,
The god agrees: "Yes, even though it saddens me very much,
For I was also a god of war,
Because I was also a god of war,
And I remember what you forget,
I recall what you forget,
Four of those five you may still regret."
You may regret four of those five reasons for war.
CHORUS
Chorus
He raised his voice and he raised his hand.
The god raised his voice and arms in action.
All strife stopped at the god's command.
All conflict halted at the god's order.
No voice ventured an angry word,
No one spoke in anger.
No hand struck and no weapon stirred.
No one attacked or drew their weapon.
In time, the man called the old god back.
Later on, the man summoned the old god again.
"Look," he cried, "what my people lack!
"See what my nation is lacking!" he exclaimed.
One lord rules over all the earth,
One ruler dominates the world,
And we're all his slaves from the hour of birth."
And we are all subjugated since we are born.
CHORUS
Chorus
"Look, he owns all wealth, and he owns all land,
"He possesses all wealth and all land,"
We starve and die under his command.
We suffer from hunger and death under his power.
He speaks the truth and he gives us peace,
He talks truthfully and brings about peace.
But all that I hope for is our release."
But all I want is our freedom.
The old god said, "This is what you willed.
The old god responds: "This is what you wished for.
For only thus is your wish fulfilled.
This is the only way your wish is granted.
War's five sources I took away,
I removed the five causes of war.
Yet I will give four of them back today."
But today I will restore four of them.
CHORUS
Chorus
He raised his hand and his voice once more,
The god raised his hand and voice once again.
And all the world overturned in war.
And there was war all over the world.
And when the last of those fires let fall,
When the devastation ended,
There was no lord in the world at all.
There was no ruler left in the world.
"Go rebuild now," the old god said,
"Go rebuild now," said the old god,
"Feed the living and bury the dead,
"Feed the living and bury the deceased,
And remember this when you speak of war,
And recall this when speaking of war,
And think upon what is worth fighting for."
And think about what is worth fighting for."
CHORUS
Chorus
Contributed by Charlotte N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@michaelreed7881
@@sabotabby3372 Ghassan Kanafani of the Poopular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Why not just talk?
No. I have never seen any talk between a colonialist and a national liberation movement
But despite this, why not talk?
Talk about what?
Talk about the possibility of not fighting
Talk about stop fighting, why?
Talk to stop fight to stop the death and the misery, the destruction and the pain
The misery and the destruction and the pain and the death of whom?
Of Palestinians. Of Israelis. Of Arabs
Of the Palestinian people who are uprooted, thrown in the camps, living in starvation, killed for twenty years and forbidden to use even the name "Palestinians"?
They are better that way than dead though
Maybe to you. But to us, it's not
@OspreyKnight
@@Florp777 I think this is more of a semantic argument.
I don't think of good or bad as right and wrong.
I would say that having liberty and freedom is good and tyranny is bad.
However in a situation where ultimate survival(avoiding extinction of a group) depends on tyranny, then it is better to have a tyrant until the situation has passed.
It is the right thing to do in that moment to do evil.
As a very simple example. Rule of law.
Law and rulers inherently oppress natural rights like the right to steal and the right to kill. The situation is that society would struggle to function and other rights would be damaged without that oppression.
Its fine if we're a tiny village or hunter gatherer society, not so much if we want to develop the technology to leave the planet.
However once we were to leave the planet, assuming we can solve individual scarcity and manufacturing, then the situation where we need that oppression passes and we can return to tiny village or hunter gatherer style of society.
Right and wrong are paths to the goal.
Good, Bad, and Better are moral judgements on actions, with Better being the goal we can never reach.
@GarrulousHerald
@@celiamalm129 He said life is one of the sources of war. And when he said he would give back 4 of the five sources of war, it depends on how you interpret life as a source. Is it the value of life and to preserve life? Or is it life itself which can cause war? If it is the prior, the old god likely would have given that back. Despite dying and starving under the king, they did not treat life as a source of war because that was part of the deal and could not.
Freedom seems like it would factor in here, and in a sense it does. Freedom is typically defined as freedom of something or from something. If you cannot declare your freedom from anything, you can be enslaved by anything. So freedom is kind of broad and is usually paired with explanations as to what you are freed from. Because freedom itself as a word is far too broad. It needs to have a cultural, societal, explicit or implicit elaboration. Therefore, depending on the nature of the restrictions as part of the deal, well it can vary... If it means that freedom itself, whatever that may be, simply cannot be used as the only excuse to wage a war, then perhaps that means that life is an appropriate excuse to wage war. So from the human's perspective, freedom would be a selfish reason to wage war, unless it had to do with freedom from death because the ultimate prioritization here is an attempt to minimize death and maximize life. So this would work as some kind of overriding factor, where freedom itself is deemed as unworthy a cause to wage war, unless it is multifaceted and considers the reason of life.
Of course another interpretation could be, that because freedom from death is life, it could be that the restriction on freedom as a source for war, could function in a way that makes it so that life as a source for war simply cannot ever be brought to fruition because in this case, an aspect of the broad term freedom intermingles with the desire for life. But since the restriction states that war cannot be waged for the cause of freedom, this means that it cannot be waged for the cause of life. In this particular song, This is represented by an incompetent or cruel rule, in which the aspect of freedom is kind of straightforward here. But you can see how these two intermingle within the song. After there is forced peace, there is just as much, if not more death due to other sources such as starvation. The desire then is for freedom from said factors, but no one can wage war for the cause of freedom.
So would this mean that the goal of preserving life could not be achieved because wars cannot be waged for the cause of freedom, or, do the restrictions work in a different way which I already explained would be that the source of life would override any restrictions regarding freedom, and even if freedom could be associated with the war for life, it is not the highest exalted reason, therefore is simply overridden and does not play in as a factor?
Or, as I also explained, are the restrictions like, if one of the boxes are checked that aren't justified, the whole thing is unjustified? Can you not wage war if any of the categories are part of the cause for war? In that case, if the cause for freedom happens to align with your cause for life, well, the freedom overrides what is deemed as and acceptable cause for the dead. And because things are intertwined, such as wealth and land can also play a part in the minimizing of death, because of these core factors that are restricted, the cause for life simply is always impossible to justify, because it relies on so many of the others, which are banned. So then the human would see that wars are waged for these purposes solely for greed, but what he forgets, is that it is not so simply defined, and he is only focusing on the worst aspects of them. And in such, he forgets how they could possibly be used as a good or justified reason.
The reason I brought all that up, is because it's a question I had and it never really was answered in the story. Because the old god simply removed all five of the reasons, including life. Though I was pondering what the potential ramifications could have been, the song conveniently kind of just ignores whatever restrictions it was trying to play, by making it simplified. Which, fair enough for it. I don't really blame it for that. It just leaves me questions that I want to ponder in a what if scenario. Which potentially is simply unavoidable for any type of song or story, because things just go a certain way and there are possible alternatives that you will simply ponder about.
I think that the implication is that he cannot take away at least 3 of the sources without taking away the fourth or the rest. I think that may be rather vaguely implied that it was an all or nothing deal. And perhaps the human, assumed that giving up the capability to wage wars for the preservation of life, was a good enough price to pay for restricting the other seemingly greedy ideals. Meaning he thought that overall it would result in less deaths. It is kind of skimmed over and I'm not surprised that people missed it. Because, it's very loosely implied. And it's also retroactively implied, and when he says he removed all five reasons when the human said four of them weren't justified, then you retroactively reason. Well, that's how the deal simply must have worked. Unless you want to try and argue otherwise, but the rules are vague enough that we don't really have an answer one way or another, we just need to assume. Assume that the old god did not just arbitrarily take all five away when he didn't need to, because that kind of taints the whole lesson, because then it could be argued that the main consideration or take away from the story was only caused by an intentionally sabotaged "answer," essentially equating to a strawman.
However, if the interpretation of life as a source of war, is the latter, in that life causes war, then your interpretation would make more sense. He either can't or refuses to give back the lives that were lost.
The problem with this interpretation, is that if life is the cause of war, then when the old god said he would give back all but one source, that doesn't really make sense, because life would still be a cause of war at least when we regard their words and meanings in a manner of consistency. There is obviously still life, and It can still wage war. Yet he didn't give it back? I guess this could potentially be answered if the interpretation is that he is not being literal, and when he says he will give four back, It is symbolic of the lives that are lost, therefore again he is not being literal. What does that mean about the first part of the song? When life is considered one of the sources for war? My only answer is that even then he was implying that life causes war or is a cause for war, yet always seems to persist in the equation, and he was only truly able to take away four of the factors, but by proxy that affected life, (but then why didn't he say he took 4 away instead of all 5) and so that is essentially taking away life, because as we saw, people still died at huge rates, the source of war that was life, was actively being taken away, rather than strictly taken away and banished like the other four reasons. My problem with this is that it is quite a stretch and it is a bit extrapolated. I don't think it is well enough represented by the language of the song to imply this, it's just one of the potential conclusions you can come to when you really try and dissect the song. It's one of the potential logical conclusions, but that doesn't mean they're writing or the song itself necessarily portrayed it very well.
Alternatively, the cause for war being life is different in the first half of the song, then the last half of the song, allowing him to equate not giving back life with the lives that were lost, even though this wouldn't really make sense in the first half of the song. The issue with this, is that again, this is extrapolated and it's simply inconsistent, and you can't blame anyone for not catching on to it. There is no notable change of language or categorization where you can notice a subtle shift in what is being talked about.
There are not many reasons to believe either of these theories when dissecting the words and meaning of the song itself. These are only retroactive ways to justify what was said.
The problem with the prior interpretation, is that it implies when he says he will give four of the five back, that the one he does not give back, are king's lies. However, this doesn't really tie into the song, it doesn't have a direct correlation, in fact, it is said that the cruel king did not ever even utter a lie. So why is the culmination of all this, the removal of a king's ability to lie? It doesn't make symbolic sense. There are no parallels drawn.
It also makes me wonder, what is the purpose of even addressing the "king's lies"? Is it simply a red herring?
This song does come across as vague and I do think that reflects on its writing. It is catchy though.
My main question is though, what is the meaning of "the sun is also a warrior?" Does it mean simply that the sun gives life, or is required for life, yet can also kill... Does it actively kill or does it just have the capacity to kill potentially? And if so, how does that categorize one as a warrior? That would of course be based on one's subjective differentiating perception of what the word warrior means.
@ThePodVon
I have found several of Leslie's songs to be powerfully applicable to various events during my life.
Knowledge can destroy, Wisdom can bring sorrow, Kindness may necessitate killing, and Remember what is worth fighting for!
History repeats because we forget its lessens.
I once spent three days humming 'The Day it Fell Apart' as an emotional defence mechanism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4y802_Ot-k&ab_channel=quizzlie
I lived in a small town, there was an explosion in the chemical plant, I happened to work (thank god not in a hospital but) at the environmental laboratory responsible for monitoring the cleanup of the site - a shit ton of contaminated water from putting out the fires.
The Lab where I worked was 15 miles away from where I lived, the Plant was a half mile away - I was off work sick that particular day and I heard/felt the explosion.
Other than that song, and the constant update reports we could get hold of about the injured, that week passed in a blur for me.
@kevint1929
"War is an ugly thing. But it is not the ugliest thing."
-John Stuart Mill
@halbkuppe4895
Not as ugly as your mom huarr huarr huarr
@darklitebug
Reminds me of a scene from the book, On a Pale Horse. Death is collecting souls from a battlefield, and War comes to happily talk about how the war is going. War is basically praising a child who just died killing a guy, and Death yells at him for the obvious horror of that. And War just gets calm and cold and says: "If you so despise me and what I do, then then fix the problems that lead to me. War is the last resort of those who have nothing else. Never forget that." Gives the same vibes.
@davidburnett5049
Sounds amazing
@xyro3633
Behold, a pale horse
@irrevenant3
Incarnations of Immortality was a great series in lots of ways. Shame Piers Anthony turned out to have so many issues. :/
@user-kd1kc6lc1d
I wish that it was true that war was the last resort of those who have nothing else. But it's not. War is just politics through non political means. It's the poor dying for the rich, or for religion, or for those who control them.
@lincolngunning1733
War is raw and costly dealings with the reaper of souls
@predator7616
Dawson’s Christian brought me down this rabbit hole and I’m all for it
@Kaadilac
Ironically this rabbit hole has so far led me to Dawson's Christian