Lyric of the Week: THERE’S A WAR GOIN’ ON
It was the end of May 1982
I was finishing high school not much left to do
One Saturday morning our man in London was shot in the head
Declared Uncle Manny: The PLO Is Dead.
There’s a war goin’ on
There’s a war goin’ on
There’s a war goin’ on
Up in Southern Lebanon
The peaceniks said Hey man I ain’t goin’ up there
I’m stayin’ right here I ain’t goin’ nowhere
But Raful said That isn’t really nice
So get your ass moving don’t you give me any shice
We wiped out the Beaufort and the arms bunkers too
We chased them to Beirut and then the PLO state was through
We were sure we won but then the whole thing took a dive
They told us No More Katyushas But Yasser Gets Out Alive
The Christians said We’ll get those PLO gorillas
So they busted in to Sabra and Shatilla
Peaceniks said to Arik You didn’t call a halt
So when Arabs kill Arabs it’s really our fault
They threw out Arik and Uncle Manny quit
We gave up hope it’s all over that’s it
Two years went by as the stalemate came rolling in
First came the Shiites now the PLO is moving back in
The whole campaign left us brokenhearted
And now up north we’re worse off than when we started
It’s 1986 the opposition got our men
Now we’re all back home in Israel but every now and then
There’s a war goin’ on
There’s a war goin’ on
There’s a war goin’ on
Up in Southern Lebanon
©2022 The Hesh Inc.
This is my telling of the events of the first Israeli war in Lebanon, which began in June 1982. I was all of 16 years old when the war started, not yet in the army, with perhaps an excessively naïve and idealistic view of things. I wrote it several years later, once I had begun my army service, but when I showed it to some of my fellow soldiers who had 'seen the elephant,' they were not amused—neither by my spin on the events nor by my lighthearted attempt to frame it in a reworked version of the Blues Brothers' cover of "Riot in Cell Block #9." Looking back now, a little wiser and more aware of things, I do see why this did not meet with their approval, and it doesn't quite meet with mine anymore. For the record, I did not spend any of my service in the Lebanese quagmire. I finished my basic training just as the bulk of IDF forces were pulled back to the 'security zone,' and with the exception of an unsuccessful search-and-rescue mission, I was never deployed north of the border. The same cannot be said for many of my friends.