Eyes In a Moon of Blindness: Rattle and Hum

...It's a musical journey

Released on October 10, 1988, it's no secret that the critics panned this entire effort from U2. The video documentary of their tour following their blast to stardom after The Joshua Tree release amalgamated the distinct artistic eyes of Phil Joanou and Phil Corbijn. Jimy Iovine envisioned the journey that captured U2's exploration of America through the eyes of the young Irish musicians. It was not an easy sell, not even for music critics who hailed the album as "excitement", another described it as "misguided and bombastic". Either way, this piece of rock history was captured and has had staying power, at least with the fans. I guess it could be said that Rattle and Hum has matured well. Whether or not they were trying to create the next Scorcese-esque video documentary, we may never know, however the album and movie capture U2 at some of their best live performances. 

A few great performances were left off the album, such as Sunday Bloody Sunday and Exit, two performances filled with passion and captured the essence of live U2. 

Below are some stories and thoughts behind the songs. 

Helter Skelter 
 The opening is raw and angry and perfect for a band who is about to go off amidst critics rambling about their delusions of grandeur ... ironic what comes next for the band isn't it?

Van Dieman's Land 
One of Edge's few vocal leads, this haunting song about the prison land that many Irish were sent to remains haunting. 
...I wrote a song called 'Van Diemen's Land' which touches on that on the new album. I was interested in the history of this character, John Boyle O'Reilly. I was out one day with my wife Aislinn and we came upon this monument in County Meath. At the entrance to it was this faded brown newspaper clipping which gave the history of his life. How he was a member of the British Army in Ireland. He left the British army and became a Fenian and wrote Fenian poetry. He was arrested by the British Government and was charged with writing material that was liable to undermine the government and was deported to Australia for 20 years' hard labour. He was, to me, a prisoner of conscience in a way. He was not a man of violence, and he was sent away for 20 years so I wrote a song about that." - The Edge, NME 1988 

Desire
This is the song that most will remember from the album. It's rock and roll with the Edge's sound and Bono's political take of the infamous 80's Tammy Fayes and Jims.

Desire' is a little classic, a little 45. Edge took the beat from The Stooges' '69, which was their take on the Bo Diddley beat. The rhythm is the sex of the music. I wanted to own up to the religiosity of rock'n'roll and the fact that you get paid for them. On one level, I'm criticizing the lunatic fringe preachers 'stealing hearts at a travelling show' but I'm also starting to realize there's a real parallel between what I am doing and what they do. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006
 
Hawkmoon 269
Bono says the song was inspired by the writings of gifted Sam Shephard and that it achieved its title because 269 was how many takes it took to get this song complete. There is a burning desire for someone in this song.


All Along the Watchtower
Bono's politics on full display as he covers the Hendrix / Dylan tune (and defaces public property). 
 

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Performed with a Harlem church choir - this version is stripped down to basics. 

Freedom For My People

A song spontaneously filmed by a local Harlem music act. They called it "folk-soul" and were inspired by Richie Havens. 

Silver And Gold
I was listening to a John Lee Hooker track, and I asked, 'Who's playing the drums?' 'That's his foot,' Keith [Richards] said. 'He was just kicking at the floorboards.' I was blown out of it. I left with my head in a spin and I went back to my hotel room on my own and wrote 'Silver And Gold' and tried to apply what I'd just heard to the project at hand, which was an anti-apartheid record. I called Keith the next day and said, 'Can I come round, I've got a song I'd like to play for you? Maybe you'd like to play on it?' Keith said, 'Sure.' So, I recorded an acoustic version of this, my first blues song, with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006

Pride (In the Name of Love) 
A great live version from McNichols Arena is a song that always inspires at any U2 show. This song, like so many, is best live as Bono can put his passion on display.


Angel of Harlem 
We landed in JFK, and we were picked up in a limousine. We had never been in a limousine before, and with the din of punk rock not yet faded from our ears, there was sort of guilty pleasure as we stepped into the limousine. Followed by a sly grin, as you admit to yourself this is fun. We crossed Triborough Bridge and saw the Manhattan skyline. The limo driver was black and he had the radio turned to WBLS, a black music station. Billie Holiday was singing. And there it was, city of blinding lights, neon hearts. They were advertising in the skies for people like us, as London had been the year before. And it was snowing. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006

Love Rescue Me 
We played two nights in LA. I woke up one morning with a song in my head, 'Love Rescue Me.' Lots of songs arrive in a dream state. At first you think it must be somebody else's song, because it's there, verse, chorus, melody. I had been dreaming about Bob Dylan and I thought it w might be a Bob Dylan song. It's about a man people keep turning to as a saviour but his own life is getting messed up and he could use a bit of salvation himself. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006  

When Love Comes To Town 
I asked Bono if he would write a song for me and he said yes. About a year later, the group was touring in the US and asked if I would open the show, and I said gladly. Bono said, ' I have this song for you.' He brought it out and I thought it was a very deep song for him, being such a young man. But I liked it very much. The lyrics were very heavy... Blues is not prejudiced. You can be any colour to play the blues. Most people say it's a simple music, I won't argue that. I say

everybody can play it, but that doesn't mean everybody's gonna like it. I think U2 did a very good job. I thought it was great and I still do. - BB King, Uncut 

Heartland 
New Orleans had the sweetness of a rotting vine, when the grapes are just on the turn. I loved it, the noble rot as wine loves call it. There's some dark colours, violet and purple. It was raining when we arrived. Danny had this baroque château in New Orleans, a beautiful house with an amazing stairwell. It was a magical place... Danny Lanois had found a world of people as lost to the music as he was; there was this dizziness in the air. That was such a great journey and a great time spent with adam. I'll treasure it for the rest of my life. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006

God Part II
He can't reply, so I'm going to.' And that became 'God Part II,' in homage to Lennon's beautiful song 'God'. - Bono, U2 By U2 2006
 
Bullet The Blue Sky
Part of the beauty of this rockumentary is that is captured the feel of a stadium rock show. The soaring guitar in Bullet is a great rock song for a large stadium. 

The subtle knock of the Hendrix Woodstock Star Spangled Banner being played before Bullet is lost on some. The song itself is the band's outspoken view of America's $$ reach into other countries through violence and regime change.

All I Want Is You 
One of Bono's sweet love songs ... it captures the stages of love and is a perfect song for the closing credits. 

Thirty Years of Grace

Grace cover photo by Merri Cyr Brooklyn 1993

Grace is basically a death prayer. Not something of sorrow but just casting away any fear of death. No relief will come, you'll really just have to stew in your life until it's time to go. But sometimes, somebody else's faith in you can do wonders. ~Jeff Buckley  

There are not many musicians that I can say "I remember the first time I heard them." In a gym on a June Thursday morning in Sydney Australia, I heard a voice that would forever change my life. As I ran on the treadmill, Hallelujah played on the TV. A voice has never affected my soul as much as Jeff Buckley's.

Within two hours, I was listening to Grace. While it was released on August 23, 1994, it was only mainstream in Australia at the time. Grace wouldn't achieve its crowning glory until, sadly, Jeff died in 1997. However, Grace was not his first album. The four song EP Live from Sin-e was the catalyst that put him into the minds of the music executives.  

But why is Grace being placed into one of the most influential and best albums of our time? Was it the music? Was it the mysterious Jeff with his storied father? Or was it simply a combination of both? His voice and intricacies of each song have been lauded by many including Bono and Jimmy Page: Technically, he was the best singer that had appeared probably in - I'm not being too liberal about this - if I say, in two decades.

So let's break down this album

Mojo Pin

It's a story about addiction - to a woman or drugs - not sure. Jeff's voice, almost at a whisper welcomes us to this song, tangled with background anonymous sounds and a silent cymbal, before we are hit with heavy guitar riffs. Possibly, this could symbolize the ups and downs of said addiction. 

Jeff once said of the song: Sometimes if somebody you feel you need... the whole universe tells you that you have to have her, you start watching her favorite TV shows all night, you start buying her the things she needs, you start drinking her drinks, you start smoking her bad cigarettes, you start picking up her nuances in her voice, you sleep in safe sometimes the most dangerous thing... this is called Mojo Pin." (Astoria, London, UK, 18/01/95).

The welts of your scorn, my love, give me more

Send whips of opinion down my back, give me more

Well it's you I've waited my life to see

It's you I've searched so hard for...

Grace

And the rain is falling and i believe

My time has come

It reminds me of the pain

I might leave

Leave behind

Someone once asked me if I had to chose one more song to hear before I leave this plain, what would it be? I answered Grace. They were assuming I would say Stairway, Brokedown Palace, or something else profound, but Grace is my song. It shows readiness and, ironically enough, Grace to face the destiny that we all have and the journey we take to reach it.

I will let Jeff explain:

It's about not fearing death, or fearing any of those countless slings and arrows that you suffer sometimes on this earth, because somebody loves you. You're not afraid to go, you're not afraid to withstand what you need to withstand because there's a tremendous fuel that you feel regenerating inside because of someone else's love for you. That's what Grace is about. And it's just about life sometimes being so long. At the time I was anticipating leaving Los Angeles for New York. So I was waiting to go. I'm not afraid to go, I'm not afraid to die, I'm not afraid to go away from this place or from any place but it just goes so slow. And I had somebody who loved me in New York. A lot. And it was amazing. It still is.  

This song has so many layers, clocks, rhythms, acoustic guitars. It is also very eerie how Jeff seemingly accepts his mortality in this song.    

Last Goodbye

A sadly sweet breakup song. It's the negotiation and pleading just before the final goodbye kiss.

Sad, desperate breakup song

This is our last embrace
Must I dream and always see your face?
Why can't we overcome this wall?
Baby, maybe its just because you didn't know you at all

Lilac Wine

Jeff loved Nina Simone. His cover of this song demonstrates his ability to transcend the rock genre. He would also cover her songs I Loves You Porgy, and Be Your Husband.

So Real

This song has that eerie foreshadowing of water. It also gave us a goofy Jeff video that includes gorilla suits, a pre-hipster bike ride through Brooklyn, and a diner scene.

And I couldn't awake from the nightmare that sucked me in and pulled me under
Pulled me under
Oh... that was so real
I love you, but I'm afraid to love you

Hallelujah

No doubt, Jeff's biggest hit. I have explained my sentiment on the song previously here (see link)

http://paulasmusicjourney.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-misguided-hallelujah.html

Lover, You Should've Come Over

Incredible accordion, harpiscordish beginning, a guilty afterthought to a love lost, possibly due to his own doing.

Lonely is the room, the bed is made, the open window lets the rain in
Burning in the corner is the only one who dreams he had you with him
My body turns and yearns for a sleep that will never come

Corpus Christi Carol

Jeff's beautiful take on a medieval song about Christ and his Knight.

Eternal Life

This song is definitely one of the few "political" songs that shows Jeff's passion for peace and love and his rebuttal of traditional religion.

There's no time for hatred, only questions
What is love, where is happiness, what is life, where is peace?
When will I find the strength to bring me release?
Tell me where is the love in what your prophet has said?
Man, it sounds to me just like a prison for the walking dead
I've got a message for you and your twisted hell
You better turn around and blow your kiss goodbye to life eternal

Dream Brother

Very haunting and you can feel the influence of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Jeff's spiritual sufi singer influence. It is a song to Jeff's friend, his dream brother, about leaving his pregnant girlfriend. It is one of the first songs where Jeff seemingly references his absent father, singer Tim Buckley.

Don't be like the one who made me so old
Don't be like the one who left behind his name
'Cause they're waiting for you like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came

Songs added in re-release

Forget Her

Such a heartbreaking song, even more so the story behind it. Jeff never wanted this song released. It is about his relationship with another singer. Sadly, she heard it. It is one of my favorites (although it could use some more organ and Hammond B3).

Well my tears falling down as I try to forget,
Her love was a joke from the day that we met.
All of the words, all of her men,
All of my pain when I think back to when.

 

Lost Highway

Cover of Leon Payne song done simply with Jeff and guitar ... and a twang.

I was just a lad, nearly twenty two
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you
But now I'm lost, too late to pray
Lord, I paid the cost, on the lost highway

Parchman Farm

A Bukka White American blues song about doing time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary

 In a way, Jeff's short life and music career is exactly what he wanted. I believe the music industry would have destroyed his fragile shell. At one point, after Grace became popular, Jeff would play under other names at small venues.

There was a time in my life not too long ago when I could show up in a cafe and simply do what I do, make music, learn from performing my music, explore what it means to me, i.e., have fun while I irritate and/or entertain an audience who don't know me or what I am about. In this situation I have that precious and irreplaceable luxury of failure, of risk, of surrender. I worked very hard to get this kind of thing together, this work forum. I loved it and then I missed it when it disappeared. All I am doing is reclaiming it

Jeff was once asked how he wanted to be remembered. Besides being a good friend, his only wish was that his music was remembered. Jeff, your wish is our command.

He was Plant and Page in one, on a technical level. ~Brad

Pitt on Jeff Buckley

Please check out Jeff's friend and photographer, Merri Cyr in her book A Wished for Song: A Portrait of Jeff Buckley http://www.amazon.com/Wished--Song-Portrait-Jeff-Buckley-ebook/dp/B005LA9LSG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407629488&sr=8-1&keywords=merri+cyr

Music Festival 101

PCarlson2010

It is that time of year again - music festival season. It is when the lineups are announced and festivals compete for our attendance. So, if you've never been before, here is my music festival guide for all you Bonnarookies, Jam virgins, and first time Coachellans.

Chose wisely
There are a lot of music festivals out there, so how do you choose? First, look at how far you have to travel. Also think about whether or not you like to camp and are okay with battling the elements. Remember, it rains at Mountain Jam and it's hot in Tennessee.

 

Go with friends
This will guarantee you a great time. If you hit the festival solo, you're in a lottery with your fellow campers. Camping with friends allows you to not only enjoy an awesome time together, but avoid what could potentially be awkwardness if you don't have great vibes with your fellow campers. Also, if you're not into the full on festival camping experience, you can always look at options "off campus". Look at local camp grounds, hotels (they can get pricey) or rentals. Also, RV's can be the way to go.

 

 

Plan ahead
This is key. Remember, most stores close to the festival will be sold out or will jack up prices. If you're going with friends, divide and conquer. Maybe one of you has an awesome stove and someone else has a nice outdoor camping shower. Divide up your shopping list, making sure you know what you can and can't have in the campsite. Bring food, beverages, and water. This will cost you a lot once you're in the festival. Save the money for souvenirs or a nice hotel post festival. Don't forget to plan for the weather.

 

PCarlson 2010

Don't anticipate much sleep
Seriously - don't. Most music festivals go 24 hours a day. Again, this involves planning. All music festivals will have a lineup via app so you can choose wisely who you need to see. Some of the best moments happen in the wee hours of the morning when you aren't expecting it. But, for safety, you should try and get some sleep, especially if you have a long drive home, or you get incredibly annoying if you're sleep deprived.

 

Fucking Hydrate
Yes, I said that and I cannot stress it enough!!  It is a long weekend usually in the hot sun. You don't want to be the one wimping out on Saturday or ending up at the medical clinic. Drink water at your campsite and during the festival. Most festivals allow you to bring in unopened bottles of water. Do yourself and your friends a favor - hydrate.

Don't YouTube and Instagram  the entire event...let the professionals do that
I've stopped going to as many shows because I don't want to deal with watching you tape a show. It's cool to snap a picture or take a five second clip, but after that you annoy me. There are people paid to film the show. Most of the time you can see your favorite moments captured on the live stream, Instagram, or from awesome concert photographers like Danny Clinch. I get it, you want to share that moment, but realize you're limiting other's enjoyment.

Choosing bands- possibly the toughest decision of your young life
Flaming Lips or Daryl Hall, Alabama Shakes or Mumford and Sons. It just ain't fair. Those responsible for the lineups are playing God and they know it. Sometimes you have to chose. It's important to have these decisions worked out with your friends as well. You don't want that argument to happen and you miss a super jam between Jimmy Page, Flea, Eugene Hutz, and Nicole Atkins (wouldn't that be amazeballs). Also, make sure to check out bands you've never heard of. It could be your next favorite band of all time.

 

PCarlson2013

 

Prepare for the most insane music moments
You never see it coming. That music moment that is forever seared in your soul. It's a mix of things that make it "that moment." It could be the song that never stops in the middle of a monsoon, the amalgam of the atmosphere, the moment, and the crowd, or it's the song itself that just drives home to ever single cell in your body.

I've had several of these moments and it definitely alters something inside of you. Thousands of people connecting with the international language of music to one moment in time is something you have to experience.

Here is one of my favorite moments. It was from Bonnaroo 2oo8. It was Pearl Jam's first festival since a tragedy in Europe that had killed several festival goers. It was hot that night and they were well over an hour into the set. I was walking with a drummer friend at the back of the crowd and when this song began, everyone had their lighters and cell phones lit and I commented it looked like a constellation. Everyone was singing along and it was if the world only existed on the farm in Tennessee at that moment. It was a moment I will forever cherish.

So go forth and conquer your first festival and make some new memories with new and old friends.

 

Sing and Rejoice: Faith No More Angel Dust

On the wings of their quirky, psycho-rap hit single Epic, Faith No More’s third album, The Real Thing, flew past the platinum mark. So what do they do for an encore? They create what is probably the most uncommercial follow-up to a hit record ever. [i]

 

Before June 8, 1992, if someone said Faith No More, you automatically would have thought, did the fish die? It was the MTV generation and the California band with new lead singer Mike Patton had found fame with their two biggest hits to date, Epic and Falling to Pieces. Beyond that, not many knew the sound or songs. While their third studio album, The Real Thing, put them on the map, it would be their fourth album with Mike Patton sharing creativity and writing credits for the first time that would give them their most respected album to date. Think Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain when you want to try to categorize each song on the album. If the album cover yin yang of a blue egret and a butcher shop doesn’t forewarn you about what’s to come, shame on you.

For those who tuned into Headbangers Ball to see and hear the most anticipated
follow up, they would not be disappointed. Some were confused. And the band took the biggest gamble getting away from safe songs that would make the airwaves and MTV’s top 10. Midlife Crisis was as if someone took the video for Epic and handed it the design over to Danzig. It was darker, creatively palatable with blurred shots, closeups, and varied palettes of texture. And the song? It was a kick to the more simple sound of Epic. Patton’s vocals were both harmonious and demonic, layers of sound, samples, with that driving Faith No More sound (think Real Thing and Epic).

The album was creatively applauded and to this day still received high honors. In reality, the album was holding up a mirror to society. “I drove around a lot in my Honda,” Patton says, “Drove to a real bad area of town, parked and just watched people. Coffee shops and white-trash diner-type places were great for inspiration.” [ii] It would be the last album with Jim Martin and possibly the best Faith No More gave us.

The early 90’s were a weird time for bands. You made it on one or two videos and then the world expected you to keep churning out the same hits. Faith No More chose artistry, pushing back against what labels wanted, and took a risk. What we got was an album that reflected more of who the individual band members were and a lasting album that was more than the sum of its parts. 

Land of Sunshine

If this was the first song to be released (via or airwaves) it would have disappointed many who would have immediately recognized the throwback to From Out of Nowhere. It’s a great song, and maybe the slow peeling of the band aid, transitioning from the last album to this. Okay, down to the bass, it sounds very similar. But it’s catchy damn it, so pat yourself on the back and give yourself a handshake … cause everything is not yet lost. This song was written while sleep deprived and inspired by personality test questions and fortune cookie fortunes. [iii]

Caffeine

Sleep deprivation in a song. This is so how it feels when you’re just trying to stay awake, maybe with animal sounds.

Midlife Crisis

Otherwise known as “the Madonna song.” Hey it was the 90’s and Blonde Ambition was the rage, Madonna was wearing pointy cone bras, chasing JFK jr., and shooting her book, Sex. They called a spade a spade.

RV

Time to slow it down. This sad song makes me thing of a washed-up Elvis impersonator who lives in a trailer park, drinks too much, and speaks in stream of consciousness.

Smaller and Smaller

This is a beautifully written tragic poem – with a great bass line.

Drought makes the workers dream

Muscles and fields of green

Shovel the last few crumbs

Of generosity

Open heart, open mind, open mouth, open vein

Drain

Someday the rains will come

My blistered hands tell me

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

Everything’s Ruined

Everything about the video is ruined, don’t watch it. It’s a wonderful song about the evils of money. Again, with the classic, driving Faith No More sound.

Malpractice

Not sure if this the song where they sample from The Wizard of Oz, but it sure feels like we’re not in Kansas anymore. It is, however, a song about a woman who loves getting plastic surgery.

Kindergarten

A brilliant song written by an angry 5-year-old. Seriously, the lyrics are brilliant and sad, the angry questioning possibly born within.

Drinking fountains are shorter than they used to be

The swings on the playground don't even fit me anymore

Folklore: Nobody's supposed to believe in the next grade

Write it a hundred times

Kingdom

Kindergarten

Waiting

Bell's not ringing

Held back again

Be Aggressive

If my mother hated that underwear poster, she really would have hated this song. Nothing like cheerleaders and aggressive fellatio, right?

 

A Small Victory

Yet another sad song about learning that there is a lot of pressure on youth to win. The video is a psychological look at that pressure of winning. They also should have saved some of the video budget on this song for Everything’s Ruined.

 

Jizzlober

Heavy, angry, ""It's written about some porno star, but I don't remember his name," he said. "I'm not the porno expert in the group!" Billy Gould. 

 

Midnight Cowboy

I watched the movie because of this instrumental. Thank you, Faith No More, for introducing me to a beautiful movie.

---

[i] Garza, Janiss (July 10, 1992). "Angel Dust". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved July 9, 2008.

[ii] Circus Magazine 1992; Patton Enjoys the Diner Things in Life

[iii] Reflex Magazine Issue 25, June 1992; Faith No More: Angel Dust in the wind by Jem Aswad

 

I Became a Visitor to Hell

Our boat touched sand and the ramp went down, I became a visitor to hell. I shut everything out and concentrated on following the men in front of me down the ramp and into the water.  -Pfc. Harry Parley, 116th Infantry Regiment, US 29th Division

June 6th marks the anniversary of Operation Overlord, the Allied Invasion of Normandy. D-Day, June 6, 1944, saw the beginning also of Operation Neptune, or the Allied Assault against German Forces. Thousands finally made their way towards France. The first assault began from the sky: 

I looked at my watch and it was 12:30. When I got into the doorway, I looked out into what looked like a solid wall of tracer bullets. I said to myself, 'Len, you're in as much trouble now as you're ever going to be in. If you get out of this, nobody can ever do anything to you that you ever have to worry about!

  --Pvt. Leonard Griffing, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, US 101st Airborne Division

It was a weird feeling, to hear those heavy shells go overhead. Some of the guys were seasick. Others, like myself, just stood there, thinking and shivering. There was a fine rain and a spray, and the boat was beginning to ship water. Still, there was no return fire from the beach, which gave us hope that the navy and the air force had done a good job. This hope died 400 yards from shore. The Germans began firing mortars and artillery. --Sgt. Harry Bare, 116th Infantry Regiment, US 29th Division

The invasion was postponed due to bad weather the day before. Mere boys were going into the unknown. Their lives would forever be changed once they found ground and began to fight.

There was this barbed wire area and a wounded officer who had stepped on an antipersonnel mine calling for help. I decided that I should go. I walked in toward him, putting each foot down carefully and picked him up and carried him back. That was my baptism. It was the sort of behavior I expected of myself.

--Lt. Elliot Richardson, medical detachment

... the craft gave a sudden lurch as it hit an obstacle and in an instant an explosion erupted.... Before I knew it I was in the water.... Only six out of 30 in my craft escaped unharmed. Looking around, all I could see was a scene of havoc and destruction. Abandoned vehicles and tanks, equipment strung all over the beach, medics attending the wounded, chaplains seeking the dead. --Pvt. Albert Mominee, 16th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 1st Division

Face downward, as far as eyes could see in either direction, were the huddled bodies of men living, wounded, and dead, as tightly packed together as a layer of cigars in a box.... Everywhere, the frantic cry, 'Medics, hey, Medics' could be heard above the horrible din. --Maj. Charles Tegtmeyer, Surgeon, 16th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 1st Division.

These men were faced with something training could never teach them. The sheer destruction, bodies being blown apart, men crying for their mother's - you cannot teach that, nor can you get over that horrid memory. But they moved on and conquered that beach. Once the beach was taken, the invasion moved inward to Western Normandy and cities like Caen.

News of the invasion was announced to the millions whose lives hung in the balance. The allies were coming to help. 

This is D-Day,' the BBC announced at 12 o'clock. 'This is the day.' The invasion has begun!... Is this really the beginning of the long-awaited liberation? The liberation we've all talked so much about, which still seems too good, too much of a fairy tale ever to come true?... the best part of the invasion is that I have the feeling that friends are on the way. Those terrible Germans have oppressed and threatened us for so long that the thought of friends and salvation means everything to us! -- Anne Frank, diary entry, June 6, 1944

It is reported that 2,499 Americans and 1,914 allied forces died that day alone. By the end of the operation itself, the United States lost 

29,000 soldiers, with another 106,000 wounded and missing; the United Kingdom lost 11,000 dead and 54,000 wounded and missing; Canada: 5,000 dead; 13,000 wounded and missing.

Tom Hanks famous line from Saving Private Ryan, "I'll See you on the beach", begins what for many, was the most factual and true movie vision of war that anyone had ever seen. War is hell.

I remember going to see Saving Private Ryan at the Richland Mall in Johnstown. The theatre was filled with veterans - and I couldn't have been prouder of my father. It took me into a world I could only see in his eyes. While he didn't leave for England on August 11th of 1944, he would land on Utah beach by August 24th, the sand clean of the remnants of D Day. He and his brothers would go on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge.

Friends, show your kids Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Flags of Our Fathers, The Pacific, Masters of the Air, or Memphis Belle when they are old enough. Take them to the World War II Memorial, cemeteries, even a Veterans Day parade. Show them pictures. Please, I beg you, don't let the importance of these days, June 6th, December 7th, or December 16th become forgotten dates. It is my legacy, I know, easy for me to be so easily swept up in the importance because I have such a close relation to it. But it is our history-something we should be so very proud of. Our fathers, uncles, grandfathers, and even our grandmothers had an important part of the history of not only our country but of the world we live in.

My Uncle and Father - France, 1944

Quotes made possible by the national WWII Museum.