Musicians getting involved in politics can be a shambolic affair at the best of times. Pledging allegiances can make you seem like a sanctimonious egotist - just ask Bono. Still, there's not necessarily anything wrong with good intentions, but they do at least need to be delivered with some grit and conviction. Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols really did influence an entire generation with Anarchy and God Save The Queen, although whether or not their intentions were good depends on which side of the fence you sit on.
This single tries very hard. It's soaked in well meaning anti-war sentiment, and allusions to the Rolling Stones (the band probably noticed how Paint It Black was on every Vietnam documentary). The problem is that Bom Bom Bom has absolutely no fight to it whatsoever. Even when things start to get a little bit rowdy after the second verse, it just all falls a bit flat.
Yes, it's terrible that young people are being sent to fight in a war that doesn't make a lot of sense (particularly to the soldiers themselves). It's not right that the only time some of the soldiers in the Gulf have left their own countries is to fight in a war. These are all terrible things. While this song is obviously not as terrible as war itself, but it is pretty awful. If you're going to write a protest song, at least sound a bit angry: vent polemic, make your guitars sound like dive bombing planes, do something to agitate. Writing something that a gay Status Quo covers band might come up with in their spare time is not really going to move political mountains.
