Single Review: One Word War

“Me job to pick off the Hun, In the sights a lad like me, One shot, and I’m alone;” just a few of the lines of this stunning, beautiful and at times harrowing poem based on Nigel Parry’s family history of relations serving in World War I.

7:56 is typically too long for a single, Queen found that out when they first tried to release Bohemian Rhapsody. While One Word War isn’t a Bohemian Rhapsody, it is a fabulous piece which takes the listener on a journey, right into the trenches of the first world war.

It begins with coughing and a harmonica playing a sad refrain, almost at times dancing around the tune to The Last Post, before Parry begins singing, the way his vocals and other sounds, are recorded it sounds like it could have been recorded in a trench.

In his accompanying blog post Parry describes it as “One Word War is a soundscape, a song, a war poem, an echoed memory, and possibly the most ‘different’ single I will ever share.”

Different it certainly is, but it also moving, melodic, entertaining, and more.

It is the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in 2021.

Bloody well done Nigel Parry.