song analysis

lyrics HERE

song: GUANTANAMO
artist: wookiefoot
genre: reggae

Nobody knows how it goes in guantanamo
Terror level orange fear fall like dominoes
Leap but not looking let's jump geranamo
Nobody knows what goes in guantanamo

Machiaveli Machiaveli then i found a quite compelling
Story that the Prince is telling now becoming foul smelling
Justified and over selling listen to your own gut feeling
Conscious screaming now it's yelling
Good's not dealt from dirty dealing

Machiaveli Machiaveli you can call us yellow belly
But from Bali to New Dehli people see what your revealing
See them rising from their kneeling
waking up from their unfeeling
Machiaveli's been dispelled by
trading vengence in for healing

Nobody knows how it goes in guantanamo
Terror level orange fear fall like dominoes
Leap but not looking let's jump geranamo
Nobody knows what goes in guantanamo

Ration the lies so international spies
can rise above the law
while we all close our eyes
Cold war, cold sores, hide behind the closed door
commit the crime that we all know that we would bomb them for

RELEASED WITHIN THE LAST 3 YEARS

The artist is talking about how Guantanamo is looked past by many people because they don't know the severity of what happens there. The treatment and laws that have been changed, they say, are bad and really, we're doing something that if any country did it, we'd be extremely upset with them. This song was written probably in 2006 or 2007, so it was right during the war that's still going on today, before President Obama was elected. You can tell that they are against the whole ordeal through certain words or phrases, which I have italicized above.

RESEARCH

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Guantanamo Bay is a prison on the island of Cuba, meant for detaining prisoners of war who are believed to have involvement with terrorist acts. They are allegedly being treated unfairly- intense ways of getting the prisoners to talk, pepper spray, poor conditions, etc. Also, they are being held there for an extended amount of time without any hopes of a fair trial or interrogation. They are basically being held without any basic rights, which any other prisoner in America would have.

Even before reading through these articles, I knew that this subject was a very controversial one. My mom talks about it a lot (she's actually the one who introduced me to this band!) , and tells me about whats been happening at this "prison."This SHOULD have an effect on every American, but many don't know whats happening. I'd like to think that everyone is opposed, in general, to this ordeal, but obviously people agree that it's just to hold prisoners without any rights. It is pretty intense, though, because these prisoners are being treated extremely unfairly. Imagine if another country was holding American soldiers as prisoners; we'd probably go over there and start a war just for that.
The good thing is, since this song was written, President Obama has been elected and almost immediately after, created something that will order the prison to close within a year, and to start treating the prisoners more fairly.

This song is written by a band who may never be heard by a large public, but I don't think that's why they wrote it. They play for whoever will listen to them, and for those people, it makes a difference. The lyrics are very intense and they make a lot of sense; they are speaking for all those people who agree, but don't know how to express their feelings about such a controversial topic. It also could very easily have opened many people's eyes to this controversy, as if they didn't know before listening; I knew nothing about this until I heard the song, so it mus tbe effective.