Roman Rhodes & The Born Again Pagans

I wrote this song on the Island itself. Visiting Saipan is like visiting another time period. The Pacific war feels like it was a few years ago, not 60. There is so much to say here that it needs a whole book perhaps. A video is in the works. While it is an anti-war song, and there was an American officer like the one in the song that inspired it in part, along with the natural beauty and the tanks in ruin on the beaches, it must be said that the Americans deserve a hell of a lot of respect for the way they fought in the Pacific in WWII, no matter how you hate war. I returned to the island with a friend from Serbia and we interviewed a lot of people as part of a planned documentary for our joke B.B.C.  It is hard to find anyone to say anything bad about the yanks on that island--though as the U.S. ships dole out most the supply jobs, maybe the mainly poor textile workers etc. feared we were undercover military. But having read a number of histories before going, I had already come to the conclusion that the U.S. has largely done good here.
The pacific war was hell on earth and a devastation of many island paradises. But what choice was there? We do have choice now, for now, however, and I hope the song speaks for others as the memorials did for me: let's not do that again! But as Leonard Cohen sings in his album the Future: "the dove will be shot again." At least until we see our oneness, our Pan. Suicide cliff is a real place, and the Japanese did commit mass suicide, pushed by their own military to do so, the stories of the civilians brainwashed into thinking the worst of the western soldiers, pushing their families and jumping off the cliffs and blowing themselves up are simply harrowing. They form the base of the bridge/chorus. I have one more song on this topic --maybe it will come out in another album later.
Paul Fleischer plays the bass clarinet in the upper registers on this to get the Sax sound. I stupidly had said not to bring the sax to the recording session. He may have been able to blow a lot wilder had he done so, as Sax is perhaps his specialty (perhaps I say, because he is so damned talented on everything). But on the other hand it does have a uniqueness about it, and he hits it, he hits it. The decision must have been inspired. The key sound though is the sanshien played by Akazawa and the guitarlele (6 string ukelele) played by Rhodes for the Pacific Isle sound. And let's not forget Crawford's dollar store plastic CD case.