Lives In The Balance

Posted by guest blogger "Sayf Maslul" 

Artist "Jackson Browne" 

"Lives in the Balance" from 1986, was an outcry against U.S.-backed wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Unfortunately, this song is more relevant today than ever.



I've been waiting for something to happen 
For a week or a month or a year 
With the blood in the ink of the headlines 
And the sound of the crowd in my ear 

You might ask what it takes to remember 
When you know that you've seen it before 
Where a government lies to a people 
And a country is drifting to war 

And there's a shadow on the faces 
Of the men who send the guns 
To the wars that are fought in places 
Where their business interest runs 

On the radio talk shows and the t.v. 
You hear one thing again and again 
How the u.s.a. stands for freedom 
And we come to the aid of a friend 

But who are the ones that we call our friends-- 
These governments killing their own? 
Or the people who finally can't take any more 
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone 

There are lives in the balance 
There are people under fire 
There are children at the cannons 
And there is blood on the wire 

There's a shadow on the faces 
Of the men who fan the flames 
Of the wars that are fought in places 
Where we can't even say the names 

They sell us the president the same way 
They sell us our clothes and our cars 
They sell us every thing from youth to religion 
The same time they sell us our wars 

I want to know who the men in the shadows are 
I want to hear somebody asking them why 
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are 
But they're never the ones to fight or to die 

And there are lives in the balance 
There are people under fire 
There are children at the cannons 
And there is blood on the wire