Top 7 Songs by Sabaton
You can’t step ten feet into either the world of Metal or History Nerds without encountering Sabaton at some point. It would be like being into online gambling but without knowing about Grande Vegas casino bonuses. Sabaton is one of the most popular heavy metal bands around and stands out from the crowd not only by singing epic songs but by singing about very epic, very real parts of world history.
They have even got an in-house historian who helps write the songs (or at least, double checks that they’re accurate). You can even find videos titled “Sabaton History” from the band’s historian on YouTube explaining the real, historical events that the songs are based on.
Suffice it to say, as a heavy metal lovin’ history buff, Sabaton’s songs are like crack for my ears, and the band is to me what Metallica was for my metal-head Dad: Awesome!
Metal is such an underrated genre of music. While pop-music and rap flails about being vulgar, crude, and unoriginal (not to mention that most pop songs are written by, like, three people), metal bands really are in it because they like making the music. Metal won’t ever have the reach of Beyonce and Cardi B, but Metal remains awesome by being genuine. Metal is made by bands who write their own songs and play their own instruments because they want to.
Sabaton is no exception, and the fact that these guys are genuinely knowledgeable of history AND can make amazing songs about it has probably encouraged more people to learn about the past better than any regular history teacher could.
Or you could just forget all that and enjoy some of the best Metal from one of the best heavy metal bands around!
7) For Whom The Bell Tolls
Speaking of Metallica, one of their best songs is “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. It’s about the futility of war, and the title is derived from a 1940s book by Ernest Hemmingway, who in turn took the phrase from a 1623 poem by John Donne, which goes:
Send not to know
For whom the bell tolls
It tolls for thee
In 2014, Sabaton released their own cover of the song, and personally, I like it better than the original. My Dad disagrees but to each his own. There’s just something about the deeper thrums in Sabaton’s version combined with Joakim’s vocals that just really works for me. However, this is admittedly a cover, which is why I can’t, in good faith, but Sabaton’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” any higher on the list.
6) Rise of Evil
It would be an understatement to say that Sabaton has a lot of songs about the World Wars. Sabaton has entire albums dedicated to the subject. However, out of all those songs, there’s really only one about the fuhrer himself. And, no, not in a positive way, obviously. The song IS titled “Rise of Evil”, after all.
The song relates Hitler’s ascent into power and all the tragedy and horror that came with it. Hitler was never exactly subtle with what he planned to do, and the song reflects that sense of oncoming dread with its slow and ominous march-step beat. Hitler’s rise to power was accompanied by violence every step of the way towards Jews, cripples, homosexuals, and even his own supporters (Night of the Long Knives). It’s a dark, macabre story of one of history’s most evil villains rising to power and getting dangerously close to world domination.
By the way, I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but someone once pointed out that the beat sounds like the repetitive clunk of train-tracks… and if that was intentional, then all the more respect to the band. That’s intense.
5) The Last Stand
DEUS VULT INFIDEL!
All memes aside, Sabaton’s “The Last Stand” actually has very little to do with the crusades. The song is actually about the Swiss Guard defending the Vatican during the sacking of Rome in 1527. Charles V, ruler of the Holy Roman Empire (which was not the same as the original Roman Empire and was famously neither Holy nor Roman), ran out of money to pay his soldiers.
The army mutinied and decided to sack Rome for easy booty. The Swiss Guard vastly outnumbered, defended the Vatican to the death while Pope Clement VII escaped to Castel Sant’Angelo (otherwise known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian).
The song is very Christian, very inspiring, and very epic.
4) Attack of the Dead Men
Ooh, let me tell you a tale, my friends. “Attack of the Dead Men” is easily about one of the most badass stories I’ve ever heard from World War 1. In 1915, the Germans assaulted the Osowiec Fortress in what would be later dubbed “The Battle of Osoweic Fortress”. Very creative.
Anyway, so Osoweic is in the hands of about 900 Russian soldiers, while an army of about seven thousand Germans advanced on them. Now, a small force can still hold out against a much larger force in a fortified position, so the German Field Marshal orders a bombardment of Chlorine Gas. Afterwards, the Germans advanced upon the fortress expecting little resistance.
To their surprise, about 100 remaining Russian mutilated Russians, coughing up blood and bits of lung, charged the Germans with guns and bayonets, taking them by surprise. This instigated a mass panic in the German army, who began to retreat… into their own traps.
The one hundred remaining Russians pushed back the seven-thousand man force, razed Osoweic to the ground so the Germans couldn’t have it, and fled back to Russian territory. This event spawned German legends about unkillable Russian soldiers that rose from the dead to fight for the motherland.
3) Counterstrike
While Sabaton has made loads of songs concerning the Nazis and a few about the Holocaust, they have actually only written one about the state of Israel itself. That song is “Counterstrike”, an epic ballad about Israel winning against all odds against three invading countries during the Six-Day War.
In 1967, President Nasser of Egypt promised war and began his aggression by blockading the Suez Canal- one of Israel’s vital life-lines. He began moving troops in the Sini Peninsula, despite the presence of UN troops (who then left at Nasser’s bequest). Eagerly, both Jordan and Syria began arming for war, despite Israel’s pleas for peace.
Desperate and seeing no other option, Israel struck first.
Israel’s air-force managed to successfully annihilate two-thirds of the Egyptian air-force, still grounded, in one fell swoop. With this huge air superiority, Israel gained a major upper hand right at the beginning of the war. Israel summarily destroyed Egypt’s First and Second armies and had the Third surrounded until the US begged Israel to halt.
The world’s jaw dropped as the IDF similarly swept in to fight Jordan and Syria and conquered the section of land now known as the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), including Jerusalem itself. For the first time in two thousand years, all of Israel, including the holy city, was under Jewish control.
This monumental and total victory was immortalized with one of the most badass choruses I’ve ever had the pleasure to listen to:
Three nations fallen, in six days of war
Traitorous neighbors, received as deserved!
Under the sun in the dust of the war,
One nation standing, STRONGER THAN BEFORE!
2) Bismark
Full disclaimer: This song earned a lot of brownie points for me by having an amazing music video. Plus, the band actually went out to sea to record themselves playing a song about a very dramatic naval battle. That’s awesome!
The Bismark is one of the largest battleships ever made and was easily the largest of its time. Produced during 1940, right in the middle of World War 2, the Bismark was a symbol of Germany’s engineering prowess and technical might, plus a sign of extravagance that could only be matched by Hitler’s ego.
The hunt for the Bismark became a matter of pride. It was one of the top priorities of the British Navy to sink the Bismark, but that wasn’t an easy task, and not for the reason you might be thinking either. The fact was, it was harder to find the Bismark than it was to sink it. The Bismark was big, but it was fast, and there’s a lot of ground to cover in the entire Atlantic Ocean. Eventually, in 1941, the British managed to corner it and sunk the beast.
1) Nightwitches
Sabaton’s “Nightwitches” is as awesome as the name implies, with some of the most intense tracks and bars, with an epic chorus and an awesome story to boot.
The song is about Russia’s 588th bomber regiment, a squad of barely functional planes with all-female pilots. To gain the advantage, these pilots would fly at night and then cut their engines during their bombing run. And just to emphasize how dangerous this was, the pilots had no way of restarting their engines other than by climbing out onto the wings and manually revving the propellers.
They would glide without power, so silent that the Germans had little to no forewarning before plans were overhead and bombs were falling around them. The characteristic noise of these planes, gliding ominously through the night, brought stories of witches and broomsticks to the minds of the enemy, who nicknamed this regiment “Nachthexen” or “Night witches”.
