MARILLION Menyuarakan Derita Gaza

Musik prog terbukti sensitif dalam menangkap isu-isu kritis dunia. Kali ini MARILLION menyuarakan penderitaan penduduk di Gaza di dalam sebuah epic yang merupakan pembuka di album barunya “Sounds That Can’t Be Made” yang rencananya akan dirilis tanggal 2 Oktober 2012 ini. Lagu berdurasi 17 menit ini memang sangat progresif komposisinya mengikuti plot cerita dari lirik yang ditulis. Liriknya sendiri sangat sederhana, tanpa kiasan, yang membuat kita semakin bisa menghayati maknanya. Kalau ingin tahu latar-belakang mengapa lagu “Gaza” ini ditulis, simak petikan wawancara dengan Steve Hogarth di Huffingtonpost:

PS: The album’s first track, “Gaza”, has an epic feel to it. Did the band make a concerted effort to write about Palestine and the situation in the Middle East?

SH: I’m not entirely sure how it came together. I had started writing words about Gaza and the situation there. The more I’ve read and heard about the situation in Gaza, the more I felt that someone, that I, should open my big mouth and say something. The subject matter has made it the major headache of my career, really. I feel a great weight of responsibility on me for saying what I’ve said. It also had to be an accurate representation of the place so I spent my weekends Skyping Gazans and Israelis to try and paint a true feeling of life there and to hear points of view from both sides.

We have a lot of trust out there amongst our fans. If I open my mouth and say something, they don’t necessarily agree with it, but they’ll go and check it out and get online and open some newspapers. Why is Steve H suddenly going on about this place? What’s really going on there? What’s upsetting him?

What I’m hoping this song will do is raise awareness of what’s going on in Gaza, what Gazans are having to endure. Then, beyond that, perhaps people will get into reading about its history. It’s not an anti-Jewish song. I must stress that. I was careful not to say anything that condemns the state of Israel although I’ve already started getting some pretty angry criticism.

The song simply outlines the stark reality of daily life in that prison-of-a-city and says “People shouldn’t have to live like this.”

Gaza is a situation that’s worsening year-on year and the world needs to get in there and do something about it because it’s becoming a breeding ground for hatred and we all need to pour a whole lot of positivity into that place. I genuinely and passionately believe that empathy and caring can move mountains. Governments seem to look at everything from a point of view of mutual suspicion. Well, we all know where that gets us. It gets us here.

Untuk wawancara lengkap: KLIK

Membaca petikan wawancara tersebut di atas, saya merinding. Lihat lah pula untaian keseluruhan lirik yang mengalun indah ini:

Gaza

When I was young it all seemed like a game 
Living here brought no sense of shame 
But now I’m older I’ve come to understand 
Once we had houses 
Once we had land 
They rained down bullets on us as our homes collapsed 
We lay beneath the rubble terrified 

Hoping.. Dare we dream? 
We gave up waiting 
For us, to dream is still a dream 

When I woke up, the house was broken stones 
We suddenly had nothing 
And nothing’s changed 

We live, eight people, in this overcrowded heat 
Factory-farmed animals living in our own sweat 
Living like this is all my baby brother ever knew 
The world does nothing. What can we do? 

We will kick the ball 
We will skip the rope 
We will play outside. Be careful 
We will paint and draw. We will say our prayers 

Outside the pitiless sun bleaches the broken streets 
The darkness drops in the evening like an iron door 
The men play cards under torchlight 
The women stay inside 
Hell can erupt in a moment day or night 

You ask for trouble if you stray too close to the wall 
My father died ..feeding the birds 
Mum goes in front of me to check for soldiers 

For every hot-head stone ten come back 
For every hot-head stone a hundred come back 
For every rocket fired the drones come back 

For thirteen years the roads have all been closed 
We’re isolated. We’re denied medical supplies 
Fuel and work are scarce. They build houses on our farms 
The old men weep. The young men take up arms. 

We’re packed like chickens in this town of block cement 
I get headache from the diesel. When it rains, the sewers too 
I had no idea what martyrdom meant 
Until my older brother.. my older brother 
I’m sorry. I can’t continue. 

You sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, it is said 
When people know they have no future 
Can we blame them if we cannot tame them? 
And when their hopes and dreams are broken 
And they feel they might as well be dead 
As they go, will we forgive them 
If they take us with them? 

Stay close 
Stay home 
Stay calm 
Have faith 

With the love of our family we can rise above anything 
Someday surely someone must help us 
With the love of our family we can rise above anything 
Someday surely someone must help us 
Even now we will go to school 
Even now we will dream to dream 
Someday surely someone must help us 

Nothing’s ever simple – that’s for sure 
There are grieving mothers on both sides of the wire 
And everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright 
But any way you look at it – whichever point of view 
For us to have to live like this 
It just aint right 
It just aint right 
It just aint right 

We all want peace and freedom that’s for sure 
But peace won’t come from standing on our necks 
Everyone deserves a chance to feel the future just might be bright 
But any way you look at this – whichever point of view 
For us to have to live like this 
It just aint right 
It just aint right 
It just aint right 

It’s like a nightmare rose up slouching towards Bethlehem 
Like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land 
Slouching towards Bethlehem 

It’s like a nightmare rose up from this small strip of land 
Slouching towards Bethlehem 

Stay close 
Stay home 
Have faith 

I can’t know what twist of history did this to me 
It’s like a nightmare 

With the love of our family 
We can rise above anything 
Some day surely someone must help us…

 

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