(The) Harvey Danger Database

Let’s be war buddies
Waist-deep in big muddies
Side by side
I’d be the atheist in your foxhole anytime

Let’s be friendly fire
Body count’s a-mountin’ on a bed of barbed wire
Coldly stacked
As soon as the morning light has broken, then we attack

If nobody tries too hard to kill you, I got your back
Across the desert, back to brave the burning sand
Back to question every effort
Undermining your command

If you got guns, well
Now’s the time for stickin’
Resistance is already forming
The second shot won’t be a warning

Let’s be collateral damage
Looking down your nose like it’s the best you can manage
Just to stand indignity after indignations
The threat of a hostile occupation
The better to form a sovereign nation

Here’s the plan: let every man who disagrees
Be roughly brought down to his knees
Be starved to death and made to freeze
And sentenced to the gulag

If you got guns, well
Now’s the time for stickin’
Resistance is already forming
The second shot won’t be a warning

When the tanks roll into Warsaw
Will I find you at the front?
Singing into a tape recorder
Shouldering the brunt of the attack
Has it come to that?
Has it come to that?
Has it come to that?
Has it come to that?

Aaron: "War Buddies" is a great example of Steve Fisk's influence on the album. Who else would have taken the backing vocal in the last verse and morphed it into the weird electronic, almost string-like sound that sustains to the end of the song? Genius.^10A

Sean: I love the way "War Buddies" dresses up in the sheep's clothing of political songwriting to chart the limitations of intense friendship—it felt like a big risk to use that language in a discursive way, but the intention is the opposite of flip, so in a way it felt like the risk was the reward (and Evan, who was always the first and most important lyric reader; signed off on it in a really affirming way when I sent him the album, which was a weird experience for him anyway, so it passed the crucial test).^10A