Often, I imagine myself in Great Britain for the early days of of the war. Late summer 1940 was unseasonably warm and recent Luftwaffe raids made it not so “phoney” anymore. The island being terrorized nightly by such awesome and ruthless forces, I perpetually ruminate. Juxtaposition of beauty amidst horror and hideousness are the things of an epic picture. The Supermarine Spitfire itself is a flying contradiction -with it’s elegant and graceful lines, it wields such dreadful weaponry.
I’ve had a dream in which I dwell in London’s late afternoon hours of September 7th, 1940. There’s a warm-cinematic orange light from the west. Ever so faintly, I hear a growing and distant droning of Heinkel He-111s with Messerschmitt Bf 109 escorts that loom easterly in a cold-blue sky. Barrage balloons waft clumsily overhead and I sense impending doom.
This is a dream from which a song emerged. ‘Keep Calm (the sea lion sleeps tonight)’ was originally to be an ode to the Spitfire, but I realized while writing that it was more of an anthemic composition about collective perseverance of the British people at an important time.
Written and Produced by Brad Peterson (Voices, Drums, Bass, and Guitar) March, 2017 at BP Labs.
Lyrics:
Barrage balloons waft
The hum of Heinkles amidst the Messers zoom aloft
Homes set aflame late the afternoon in september
But then the spitfires came
Ellipses of tracers And the thunder of bombs
Keep calm and carry on
Esprit de corps stood
Like the dome saint paul
And the Hurricanes flew as fast as they could
Ellipses of tracers And the thunder of bombs
Keep calm and carry on
In the low tide
The sea lion sleeps tonight
The gramophone played
In the shelter
and echoed Vera -we’ll meet again
A garden anew
amid a crater
Where seeds of death were sown vegetables grew
Ellipses of tracers And the thunder of bombs
Keep calm and carry on
