In tomorrow’s class at the community college, I am going to use Tom Waits‘ “Day After Tomorrow” as for discussion. I encouraged (more like assigned) my students to look for songs about social justice, politics, and/or current events to add to the conversation.
“Day After Tomorrow” is on Real Gone, which is an amazing album. And this song, while done as one of Waits’ touching ballads, beautifully condemns the Iraq war (or any other war for that matter) through the story of a young soldier:
I got your letter today
And I miss you all so much here
I can’t wait to see you all
And I’m counting the days dear
I still believe that there’s gold
At the end of the world
And I’ll come home
To Illinois
On the day after tomorrow It is so hard
And it’s cold here
And I’m tired of taking orders
And I miss old Rockford town
Up by the Wisconsin border
What I miss you won’t believe
Shoveling snow and raking leaves
And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow
I close my eyes
Every night
And I dream that I can hold you
They fill us full of lies
Everyone buys
About what it means to be a soldier
I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel
‘Bout all the blood that’s been spilled
Will God on this throne
Get me back home
On the day after tomorrow
You can’t deny
The other side
Don’t want to die
Any more than we do
What I’m trying to say,
Is don’t they pray
To the same God that we do?
Tell me how does God choose?
Whose prayers does he refuse?
Who turns the wheel
Who throws the dice
On the day after tomorrow
(Humming)
I’m not fighting for justice
I am not fighting for freedom
I am fighting for my life
And another day
In the world here
I just do what I’ve been told
We’re just the gravel on the road
And only the lucky one’s come home
On the day after tomorrow And the summer
It too will fade
And with it comes the winter’s frost, dear
And I know we too are made
Of all the things that we have lost here
I’ll be twenty-one today
I’ve been saving all my pay
And my plane will touch down
On the day after tomorrow.
