Song Title: Lives in the Balance
Written by: Jackson Browne
Released in: 1986
Preformed by: Jackson Browne
I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
In the 80s when the song was written, a few wars had
Middle east
-Iran iraq
-Societ-afgahn war
-Arab–Israeli conflict
-Lebanese Civil War
-cold war
-Nuclear threats
big conflict going to happen, little fires.
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Browne is asking his audience what it will take for them to recognize that they
allow
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
Tonkin guld, lusitania, his lies
And there's a shadow on the faces
The men are corrupt and anonymous
Of the men who send the guns
The people who actually control the military. This is referring to the military industrial complex.
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
This goes back to the military industrial complex which for example Stark Industries sells weapons to both America's
On the radio, talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
Justifying war by proclaiming that democracy is needed and what not. this is the reason for Vietnam.
And we come to the aid of a friend
Justifying the facade that the only reason we ever do anything is just to help other countries, instead taking accountability for the real economic reasons.
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
Asking whether we are supporting the right people, the oppressors or the oppresses.
These governments killing their own?
Referring to how we support people as our allies who are actually dictatorships, not necessarily human or just people. Or they mistreat their own people, but we call them our friends because of our. Call our actions altruistic, when we really there is a hidden agenda of economic benefit. This happened with Mubarak, and in Vietnam, where the South Vietnam was a totalitarian dictatorship but we justified supporting them by saying that we were fighting communism.
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
These are the people, Browne is saying we should support as contrast to the former.
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
This is sayings that the cost of these exploits that innocent people are being killed. Peoples' "blood" is dependent on the decisions being made by these "faceless" people calling the shots.
There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
The Military industrial complex wants war to continue
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names
The Middle east and the eastern world; Soviet-Afghan War
They sell us the President the same way
These "men" sell the IDEA of the president they what, they control the president completely and he really is just a figurehead product.
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The entirety of culture--not only propaganda--was based off of the motives of these men, that brainwash America into the kind of population that they can easily manipulate. Labels became really big in the 80's.
The same time they sell us our wars
The same tactics are used, to justify war by appealing to a belief system that they have created only to strengthen the ideal of a war of Good vs Bad.
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
The "men" need to identify themselves and take accountability in front of the public eye.
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
cheerios18 Community Member 
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