I had been sick at home, watching endless hours of Ted Koppel wearing the most ridiculous helmet while reporting live from the field. We were about to invade Iraq. I thought about our brothers and sisters who were about to be killed, or were about to kill someone else’s brother or sister.

I had previously been writing what was to become “Do Bei Lei Lo” in the weeks prior, attempting an experiment where I would pick an artist I admire and try to write a song in his or her signature style. Sting held a fascination for me because his songs have simplistic language in the choruses and vivid narration in the verses. As an added challenge, I wanted to pay homage to his use of world music and foreign language. All I had so far in my experiment was what is now the chorus of the song. Syllables and nothing more, which I planned to convert to text later on.a

So as I sat there from the comfort of my loft I thought of what it would be like if I were out on that desert and stranded with an enemy, alone. What would I say? This is what came to me:

A Battlefield at night. Corpses litter the landscape, and the sound of the battle echoes about a mile in the distance. Two soldiers from opposing sides are stranded in a hole. One is missing his legs. He will very clearly die, and soon. The other is severely wounded but not fatally. Silence. They lie there. The legless man speaks:

“Now theres a real chance I won’t make it out alive,
And if it comes down to it – promise me before I die
To take this bullet from my gun and then ram it through my brain,
And carry out these two few words to the one who calls my name.”

The song is a dying man’s final wish – one he makes to a fellow soldier, regardless of his political allegiance, to put him out of his misery and take a message to his love far, far away.

Conveniently, this meant the choruses were magically finished. The syllables were romantic ‘code’ between lovers, and should the message actually get delivered, she would know he was gone and in a better place. All it took was to write the remaining verses and it was complete. I did so before the tanks reached Baghdad.

For a long time I neglected to play this song live, thinking it too ‘arty’. However every time I did, people would ask about it and soon thereafter request it. Just goes to show that one is not always the best judge of one’s own work! Making the recording with Allison Miller on percussion, Bob Hart on bass, and Dennis Grady on Electric Guitar was a blast.

If you like check out the video…