World’s War

[Intro]
The world's war
1884
History

[Chorus]
History is written by the winners, true
Sometimes though heroes are of another hue
Another religion, another point of view
Are they remembered at all? By who?

[Verse 1]
The world's war, 1884
Scramble for Africa, height of imperial force
European armies go and conquer the globe
With a gentleman's agreement to not kill off their own
So, massacres in the Congo
All the dead are Amritsar, ain't nothing wrong though
Some are less dead than others, you know why?
It's the same in the grave as it is in this life
The lower grade races, subject people
Have a different heaven and hell, there's less people
In the same way, we choose to remember
Who to lionise and who to forget all together
Not based upon the sacrifice that they made
But upon the prejudices of the time and the place
So, Chinese workers on the Western Front
That dug trenches and then filled in the graves
And made their way
Carving engravings on shell casings
Fade from the story as we tell it today
And gas, made its way across the battlefield
Choking North Africans fighting for France
They were French enough to die for the flag
But reconcile with history, it seems that we can't
The process of forgetting started at the beginning
Cos of the discomfort of who it was that was winning

[Chorus]
History is written by the winners, true
Sometimes though heroes are of another hue
Another religion, another point of view
Are they remembered at all? By who?
History is written by the winners, true
Sometimes though heroes are of another hue
Another religion, another point of view
Are they remembered at all? By who?

[Verse 2]
When you have an empire of inferior creatures
What happens when you need them to die like real people?
Through the training, and the sacrifice
Might end up believing they are equal
Go back to the land of the savages, unwilling
For subordination for people that they were killing
Quickly they erased them
Unmarked graved them
Disavowed them of any idea that things were changing
The wrong people that fought for the British flag
Were not invited to the victory parade
Did the same work, fought in the same war
Never got the same bonus when Armistice Day came
Black Americans, in segregated units
With German POWs treated better than them
Go back to America, Jim Crow and lynching
That would greet them when the war ends
Red Summer, Red Summer
Domestic terrorism put them back in their place
Vigilante mobs, Klan and the police
Collaborate while the state look the other way
Liverpool and Cardiff, Barry, London and Glasgow
After the war, similar terrorism
War broke hierarchy, supposed to be eternal
And for that, it could never be forgiven

[Chorus]
History is written by the winners, true
Sometimes though heroes are of another hue
Another religion, another point of view
Are they remembered at all? By who?
History is written by the winners, true
Sometimes though heroes are of another hue
Another religion, another point of view
Are they remembered at all? By who?