Hero of War - Rise Against

I tried to learn guitar chords for modern pop-rock songs... so that i can at least play some of the stuff that the kids and friends in church like... songs like Yellowcard's Only One (okay), Boys Like Girls' Thunder (eeew come to think of it its a crappy song and band) and One Republic songs (a closet guilty pleasure of mine).

But i gave up on learning all of them after hearing Rise Against's Hero Of War. Now i only stum this song lol.

I realised why i don't listen to mainstream rock and pop-rock and pop... It sucks. The singers all sound the same. The melody structure follows the same structure as boybands, i.e. easy listening, memorable verse melody but lack real gritty thought-provoking substance. Electric guitars are non-existent (whats rock music without them?). Singers sound like they never reached puberty. Most are one hit wonders (well, maybe you can call them 2-3 hit wonders, but that elevates them only to the level of boybands)

And don't get me started on pop-punk! Yuck! The worst subset of rock music... its so fail it doesnt deserve a place in the rock music family. Every, I repeat, every singer have the same voice, and its a pre-pubescent whiny crybaby voice. The chord stucture is the same throughout every song(I, Minor, IV V, repeat), guitars are just high pitched power chords, lyrics are restricted to break-ups, new love, and masturbation. Melody is the irritating kind that gets stuck in your head. POP-PUNK SUCKS!!!!!

Sorry, i grew up listening to a few real punk rock music... Very little mainstream elements in them, they don't hold back on aggresion and distortion... stuff like The Offspring, The Ramones, Rise Against.... So i know that punk has so much potential than the "pop" kind you hear on the radio

And nowadays i stopped listening to music just for the music and opened my ears to the lyrics. The lyrics of pop-rock songs are at best okay, i guess, but there are more lyrical themes other than love, break-ups, finding love, walking together... notice the similiarity with boybands here?

Yes, I'm talking about the themes usually explored by political punk bands, not-too-Christian bands, metal bands and such. Themes like politics, violence, death, brotherly love, stepping up for our society, war, religion, peace, basically all the hippie stuff but darker.

Enough of ranting about music. I want to get back to the main feature of this post: Rise Against's Hero Of War. Its my new favourite song. Heres a homemade Youtube video.



Rise Against is punk rock band that i heard a few songs years ago...They sing alot about politics, society, suffering, rebellion but also sometimes the standard fare of love and hate... Only last year did i get to hear more of their songs... They are a harder kind of punk band, meaning they lean on the hardcore side.. They scream some of their choruses ala Foo Fighters style(but even more xiong). But this is the first time i heard an acoustic song from them.

If you took the time to hear the song, and even watch the video, i'm sure that it somehow got those brain cells working a bit. Even if the music doesn't really suits your taste, surely the lyrics must have gave you a new viewpoint of soldiers, essentially but not necessarily American.

I personally feel the melody is great, on the mainstream side, like today's pop-rock ballads... but this song conveys more emotion that the other modern ballads i heard. The lyrics actually have substance. (Pissed in his hands... surely thats an eye-opening line? Shit like these happens in this world btw) The chord structure is simple, again similiar to others, but the whole song just.... trumps the rest.

The song gave me a few different perspectives: The persona, a soldier most likely an American (they wrote the song in such a way it could be ambigious, but the first verse, involving how the soldier got influenced into joining the army, is uniquely American).

His ideology of war changes in 4 minutes of the song: From a gung-ho, proud new recruit, wanting to be a hero of war, to a callous commanding soldier, although having a little conscience left, does his job in a slightly cold-hearted way.

Soon, he guns down a civilian woman, which i assumed he feared to be hostile, but couldn't discern through the chaos and battle(soldiers face this shit. Thats why sometimes they shoot innocents or friendly soldiers: Its hard to discern whos friend and whos foe in the thick of battle). Upon realising that the woman was holding the white flag of surrender, his whole attitude towards being a "hero of war" change.

Then theres the perspectives of the others: The captured man, his family and friends, the children around, the lady with the white flag: All victims of war


Rise Against's newest album, where Hero of War is taken from. Thinking of buying it.

It made me think about us... we have never gone through war, and some if not all of us will/has not lose/lost a loved one through war, let alone be inside a war-torn area. Truly we are blessed, but what about others?

And what about the soldier? America, desperate for recruits, resort in aggressive marketing to portray being in the army as cool, hip and heroic. Many youths, swayed by the charisma of soldiers giving talks in schools and a sense of patriotism, signed up, not knowing the consequences of almost inevitability getting into a warzone.

I just wanna say that theres better music out there that the mass-produced radio hits that most ppl listen to... Hopefully I can introduce a little bit of those to you guys. In turn, you guys usually corrupt me with pop music too, haha, so its fair lol. :)

OH YEAH I DON'T HAVE THIS SONG!!! ANYONE WHO HAS IT CAN SHARE WITH ME??? THANKS!