Extreme - Rest In Peace

Extreme - Rest In Peace - Meaning of the song

The first single from Extreme's third album is the surprisingly political "Rest in Peace." It proclaims a sentiment rarely heard outside the country genre: war is sometimes necessary. The song was written around the time of the first Gulf War when the United States invaded Iraq in 1991 as part of Operation Desert Storm. Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt of Extreme got the idea for the song after seeing footage of protesters holding signs that said, "Make Love, Not War."

Bettencourt explains:

"We thought that war is not that simple. Nobody wants war until somebody is invading their country."

Extreme scored their biggest hits with "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted" from their previous album, Pornograffitti. "Rest in Peace" sounded nothing nothing like those acoustic numbers, and made little impact on the American charts. Their next single, "Stop the World," only made #96, and after one more album, the band split up. The returned in 2008 with Saudades de Rock. Both Bettencourt and Cherone have had rather interesting gigs outside of the band: Cherone was lead singer in Van Halen from 1996-1999, and Bettencourt joined Rihanna's live band in 2009.

Rest in peace - Lyrics

Let's talk of peace, Sounds so cliche A novelty, catch phrase of the day Middle, index, Sign of the time Just as complex, As water to... Someone said give peace a chance And, that's all that we're saying While we're sitting on the fence Pretending, Our hearts are in the right place But, your face Shows a trace of, Hypocrisy, Don't tread on me, Now you can see MAKE LOVE NOT WAR, SOUNDS SO ABSURD, TO ME WE CAN'T AFFORD TO SAY THESE WORDS, LIGHTLY OR ELSE OUR WORLD, WILL TRULY, REST IN PEACE Let's not pretend, to justify Rather amend, Where treasures lie Straight through the heart, Peace can be found That's where you start, Not all around Someone said give peace a chance And, that's all that we're saying While we're sitting on the fence Pretending, Our hearts are in the right place But, your face Shows a trace of, Hypocrisy, Don't tread on me, boy Now you can see