This is about Saddam Hossein’s last ten minutes before he was hanged at the gallows. It tells the story of a tyrant’s obsession with power and his misperception that God wanted him to rule.
The italicized texts are from Edgar Alan Poe's poem "Dream Within a Dream”. The poem originally depicts a farewell to a beloved admitting that the reality we see or seem has been a dream.
The "pitiless waves" is an analogy for the cruel passage of time, but when applying this to Saddam’s life the whole poem takes on a very modern aspect. In its new context, Saddam is weeping for saying farewell to life which he loves more than anything else as the sands represent the terrain of Iraq.
The passage of dreams is in literature described as violent, "a surf-tormented shore". It is also violent in my song because it depicts the Iraqi shores being “tormented” by US Navy Destroyers. In literature, the dreams lost are compared to "grains of golden sand". The "dream within a dream" are memories as seen or as they seem. In my song, it’s “A nightmare within a Dream” because Saddam’s Fall to him is an unimaginable disaster. The end of the song takes on a rhythmic melody symbolizing the Kurds’ enjoyment after Saddam’s death.
On 16 March, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War (1980-88), Saddam ordered the use of chemical weapons in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Southern Kurdistan. The result was the massacre of Bloody Friday.
The fate of Saddam cannot be judged without the atrocities of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. And these atrocities would not have happened if the structure of the UN had not allowed for the invasion of Iraq.
Therefore, the lyrics are also about the Americans coming to the Persian Gulf with a UN permission (License to Kill) and about UN Security Council reforms. Many activists including myself believe the five permanent members should change and some third world countries should be in the Security Council too. Thus “The current structure of the United Nations has failed. Call the Third World in.”
lyrics
Saddam:
Take this kiss upon the brow, and in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow.
You are not wrong who deem that my days have been a dream.
Yet, if hope has flown away, in a night or in a day.
In a vision or in none, is it therefore the less gone.
All that we see or seem, is but a nightmare within a dream:
Narrator:
Sailing cross the seas with a License to Kill,
Marching on the sands of the Persian Gulf,
Where heads will roll, no single soul would believe that they would leave, once the Lord of Qadesiyyah overthrown.
Operation genocide, breeds only suicide.
Euphrates ashamed, for black gold betrayed,
Where eagles dare, death fills the air.
Now the Lord has dropped his sword, the battle’s lost, the test is scored. Who failed this state?
Every rise will have its final fall. These gallows will hear the call of a tyrant going down, down, down; A king without a crown.
Chorus:
Saddam:
I will leave this world, they’ll curse me all.
Bow to me and treasure me at least until I fall.
I, the Lord of terror, will die, betrayed by the masters of the House of the White.
Saddam:
Oh God, can I not grasp one with a tighter clasp.
Oh God, can I not save one from the pitiless wave.
Oh God, why (do) you let me die?
I, the King, I would bring passion to the realm of blood.
Saddam:
I stand amid a roar of a self-tormented shore.
And I hold within my hand, grains of golden sands.
How few, yet how they creep, from my fingers to the deep,
while I weep, while I weep.
Narrator:
War’s an act of optimistic facts.
Post-Cold war needs most wholistic pacts.
The current structure of the United Nations has failed, call the third world in.
Every rise will have its final fall.
These gallows will hear the call of a tyrant going down, down, down, a king without a crown.
Chorus:
Saddam:
I will leave this world, they’ll curse me all.
Bow to me and treasure me at least until I fall.
I the pastor of death will die.
Baptized and betrayed by the House of the White.
credits
from Suicide In B Minor,
released June 26, 2014
Amirali Nourbakhsh electric and acoustic guitars
Hadi Kiani Keyboards
Herbie Langhans Vocals
Jalal Gholami Bass
Arash Moghaddam Drums
The tracks on Whispers in Crimson’s first album, Suicide in B Minor, reflect the political mindset of the band’s founder,
Amirali Nourbakhsh.
He was 13 when the Islamic Revolution took place in Iran overthrowing the Shah. As a son of an American-Iranian trained naval officer under the Shah’s regime, he witnessed how the 1979 revolution changed his life overnight....more
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