Rorke's Drift

Rorke's Drift

I'm a bit late, but January 22nd is the anniversary of the battle of Rorke's drift. Of course someone took the song and set it to Zulu with Michael Caine. And in case you want the official lyric video...…

Read More

The War to End All Wars

The War to End All Wars

The short version? Go see 1917. It's a solid war movie. If I had a quibble it's that they compressed nearly 24 hours into just a few while at the same time, except for a period of unconsciousness, showing you the events in two apparently continuous shots. There was certainly less overt antiwar messaging than I would have expected. The background music, while not Zimmer, is similar to his more recent soundscape-style work. From a technical perspective, it's an amazing achievement of steadicam…

Read More

Sabaton Day by Day - Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Sabaton Day by Day - Seven Pillars of Wisdom

You can consider this the inauguration of a series - to insofar as possible, commemorate the events behind Sabatp's song on the anniversary of said events. I haven't mapped all of them to a calendar yet, so things may be incomplete for a while, but I've already seelcted dates for each song in The Great War. Today marks the anniversary of one of the first raids conducted by the Arabs in conjunction with T.E. Lawrence "of Arabia" against the Ottoman Empire. Incidentally, the story of Lawrence is…

Read More

Resist and Bite

Resist and Bite

The most recent Sabaton History video is about the background to one of my favorite Sabaton songs - Resist and Bite. It's the story of the Belgian troops holding the border against the German invasion in World War II. Outnumbered, outgunned, with nothing but light arms, machine guns, and rifle grenades, the Belgian troops held their ground so tenaciously through maneuver and fire that when finally captured, the Germans were shocked to discover how few truly stood against them. And while we're…

Read More