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9:32:00 PM EDT
Feeling Sad
One Tin Soldier
One of the first war protest songs I ever learned was One Tin Soldier from my favorite movie as a girl (Billy Jack.) A few days ago I was singing along with this song on a mix. Tabby declared the music was cheesy (and it is, a bit) but after she listened to the lyrics I heard her telling the twins a few days later that it is a really good, sad song.
Tonight I found to my astonishment three versions of it on You Tube....and one of them is absolutely devastating using real pictures from Iraq. There are dead bodies and wounded children in here--this video is not for small ones.
(Shelby buried her head in the chair while we watched it.)
One is an old video from the seventies
YouTube - 1970s Animated Music Video - One Tin Soldier - by Coven
and another is a Japanese animated video.
I urge adults and teens to view the modern one. It is very timely. The picture of Cheney calling for us to "Mount your horses, draw your swords"...is very telling.
One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)
by Lambert-Potter, sung by Coven
Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago,
‘Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley-folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath the stone,
And the valley-people swore
They’d have it for their very own.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
So the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill,
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they’d kill.
Came an answer from the kingdom,
“With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there.”
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Now the valley cried with anger,
“Mount your horses! Draw your sword!”
And they killed the mountain-people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure,
On the mountain, dark and red.
Turned the stone and looked beneath it…
“Peace on Earth” was all it said.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.
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I remember singing this in elementary school in chorus. It was sad then and surely about the Vietnam war and is very timely still.
Traci -
Different generations, Caroline. :-) I was a little girl, with uncles slogging through rice paddies in Viet Nam, and parents who were getting their college degrees at UK when this song came out. Coven (not Joni Mitchell) did do it a trifle bit operatic, but the scene in Billy Jack starts with them rounding up mustangs and running them over rocks to be slaughtered...it ws quite powerful at the time.
Now, of my uncles who served in that horrible war, one is totally screwed up, and homeless with PTSD...the other was in the Navy and on an aircraft carrier. He was a fireman, and used to help wash out the blood off choppers. He is pretty normal, but he was very different when he came back from there.
I grew up in the sixties and seventies, when protesting a terrible war seemed, well, normal. I suppose that is why this one seems so normal to protest, too. There is no good reason for us to be killing over 100,000 people so far.
Christ Himself said not to wage war. -
I first learned that song at Camp Ernst, first as a camper and later as a counselor. What a great place. Forever that song will seem less like a protest song to me and more like a campfire song, although the whole point WAS to teach unity and brotherly love, esp. since the camp is run by the YMCA.
The Joni Mitchell version (much as I adore Joni and all of her music) always seemed too much to me, as I was used to a softer sort of version, sung a capella at night by smaller voices.
-Caroline -
I will have to watch those. Billy Jack...and the sequels were my favorite movies as a child. I think it just hit me at this moment where I got my tolerance and acceptance from...those movies. Loved the song....loved the message in the movies.
Tracie
10/23/06 12:13 PM
I just thought I'd share my memories on the song. =)