So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

      Wilfred Owen, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Begin with two minutes of silence.

 

Intro: Trumpet plays the Last Post – the Cotswolds, UK (via one-minute vacation)
Roger Hodgson — Had A Dream (Sleeping With the Enemy) from In The Eye Of The Storm (1984)
Henry Burr and the Columbia Stellar Quartet — Sons of Liberty (Columbia cylinder, 1917)
Suzanne Vega — The Story of Isaac from Tower of Song: Songs of Leonard Cohen (1995)
The Men They Couldn’t Hang — Green Fields of France (No Man’s Land) from Night of a Thousand Candles (1985)
The Decemberists — This Is Why We Fight from The King Is Dead (2011)
Tim Buckley — No Man Can Find The War from Goodbye and Hello (1967)
The Dixie Chicks — Travelin’ Soldier from Home (2001)
Stan Ridgway with the Fowler Brothers — The Cannon Song from Lost In The Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill (1985, out of print)
Steve Earle with the Pogues — Johnny Come Lately from Copperhead Road (1990)
The Violinaires — Another Soldier Gone (1954 single)
Chumbawamba — Hanging On the Old Barbed Wire from English Rebel Songs (1988)
Sixteen Horsepower — The Partisan from Leonard Cohen En Boca De… (1998)
Billy Bragg — Between the Wars from Back To Basics (1993)
The Four Vagabonds — Four Buddies from a 1943 radio broadcast, collected on Complete Recorded Works Volume 3
Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris — 1917 from Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (1999)
Big Country — Remembrance Day from The Seer (1986)
Tom Waits — A Soldier’s Things from Swordfishtrombones (1983)
Chris Whitley — Cool Wooden Crosses from Terra Incognita (1997)
Frank Miller — Stony Broke In No Man’s Land (78 RPM single, 1921)
Richard Thompson — Al Bowlly’s In Heaven from Daring Adventures (1986)
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band — Veteran’s Day Poppy from Trout Mask Replica (1970)
coda: Chaz Jankel — Peace, At Last from Chaz Jankel (1980, out of print)

for Claude Stanley Choules, last surviving combat veteran of World War I, died 5 May 2011, aged 110.

 

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About the Author

Jack Feerick

Critic at Large

Jack Feerick — editor, proofreader, freelance know-it-all, and three-time Jeopardy! champion — lives with his family somewhere in upstate New York, where he plays in a rock 'n' roll band and occasionally runs his mouth on local radio. You can listen to more of his work on Soundcloud, if you like.

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