Opinion: The songs about conflict resonate loudly

It was Bragg himself who became well known through his song Between the Wars, when he was warning against the continuing warmongering between nations. And it is songs more than anything that come into my mind whenever war and conflict is discussed. For it is invariably young people, and in particular young men, who are the cannon fodder in such conflict; conflicts initiated by an older generation. Bob Dylan's Masters of War testifies to this, as does Bruce Springsteen's Youngstown. Ian Campbell, the father of Robin and Ali of UB40 fame, wrote a song called The Old Man's Lament, about a man whose father was killed in the Boer War, and who himself was invalided in the First World War. The son fought in the Second World War, and the daughter married a GI and "never bothered to come home"; instead her son finds himself "called up to fight in Vietnam".