No Such Thing As a Winnable War

Two of the three kids are studying the Cold War right now, so of course, like a good Generation X mom, I am making them listen to "Russians" by one of my favorite artists, Sting.... and when they have, they must explain to me how history demonstrates that Sting was wrong.

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And while we are on the subject of Sting, here is one of his best ones, in my humble opinion, a beautifully written extended metaphor (along with the 80's music video which seems weird in retrospect).

Fortress around Your Heart

Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through it's streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognised the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I've built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

Then I went off to fight some battle
That I'd invented inside my head
Away so long for years and years
You probably thought, or even wished that I was dead
While the armies all are sleeping
Beneath the tattered flag we'd made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I've built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire

This prison has now become your home
A sentence you seem prepared to pay
It took a day to build the city
We walked through it's streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the lands I'd known
I recognised the fields where I'd once played
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I've built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire