Bells and Cannonballs

The idea for this song came to me as I was reading the novel by Amor Towles "A Gentleman in Moscow".  It is a beautifully written book.  In it, the main character muses about bells in England being melted down to make cannons to fight in France.  Those are melted down to make church bells that are then melted down to make cannon to fight in Russia.  This imagery stayed with me for a few months and one day I woke up with this tune in my head and the line "Bong to bang, was it the bells that rang, or the cannonade that sang, the songs of joy or pain".