Anti-war song commandment

[womzilla]

Via pnh.


"One More Parade", Phil Ochs

Hup, two, three, four, marching down the street
Rolling of the drums and the trampin' of the feet
Generals salute and mothers wave and weep(?)
Here comes the big parade
Don't be afraid
Price is paid
One more parade

So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame
Don't be ashamed
Light the flame
One more parade

Listen for the sound and listen for the noise
Listen for the thunder of the marching boys
A few years ago their guns were only toys
Here comes the big parade
Don't be afraid
Price is paid
One more parade

So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame
Don't be ashamed
Light the flame
One more parade

Medals on their coats and guns in their hands
Trained to kill as they're trained to stand
10,000 ears need only one command
Here comes the big parade
Don't be afraid
Price is paid
One more parade

So young, so strong, so ready for the war
So willing to die upon a foreign shore
All march together, everybody looks the same
So there is no one you can blame
Don't be ashamed
Light the flame
One more parade

Cold hard stares on faces so proud
Kisses from the girls and cheers from the crowd
And the widows from the last war cry into their shroud
Here comes the big parade
Don't be afraid
Price is paid
Don't be ashamed
War is a game
World in flames
So start the parade

One of my contrarian friends posted an "are there any good pro-war songs" request (in a friends-locked post). The top finisher was


"The Battle Hymn of the Republic", Julia Ward Howe

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

Chorus

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on."

Chorus

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

Chorus

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

Chorus

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

but my choice is


"Battle Cry of Freedom", George F. Root

Yes, we'll rally round the flag, boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
We will rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

(Chorus)
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitors, up with the stars;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And we'll fill our vacant ranks with a million free men more,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus

So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus

about which I said,

... it's a thin, singable tune and contains the best rationale for a just war I've ever read in two lines. . . . It also has the honor of being so good that the enemy in the war stole it and rewrote it for their own purposes.

(Is there any other song which can claim that honor?)

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Marching To Pretoria (http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-songs-with-chords/Marching%20To%20Pretoria.htm)

I'm with you and you're with me and
So we are all together,
So we are all together,
So we are all together.
Sing with me, I'll sing with you and
So we will sing together
As we march a long.

. Chorus:
We are marching to Pretoria,
Pretoria, Pretoria,
We are marching to Pretoria,
Pretoria, Hurrah.

We have food, the food is good, and
So let us eat together, (3 times)
When we eat, it is a treat, and
So we will sing together,
As we march along.

There. The real reasons to go to war: Eating and Singing together. Good times, good times.

Honorable Mention to Lili Marleen

[(Anonymous)]

The enemy didn't steal it or rewrite it, but, according to Bill Mauldin's *Up Front,* the Allied Nations were at least as fond of it as the Germans.

When Richmond fell to the Union, Lincoln visited the city, and asked the band to play "Dixie." His rationale was this: "'Dixie' is one of the best songs I have ever heard, and we have captured it.'"

It was Billy Bragg who dreamed he saw Phil Ochs last night. Being a pretentious Sparrow, when I think of Ochs, I'm more apt to rewrite a William Wordsworth sonnet --

"England, 1802"

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

-- and change "Milton" to "Ochs" and "England" to "America." He certainly wouldn't lack for material with this Administration.

Good luck to all of you.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

As for two-line justifications for war, there's always the second verse of the Tar-Tangled Spanner, which includes the lines:

"Then when conquer we must, an our cause it is just,
then this be our motto, 'In God is our trust.'"

Which -- modulo religious sentiment or lack thereof -- is a line that should be tattooed on every inch of the Resident's epidermis with Kafka's "Machine." Especially the part about the cause being just.

It's a lot easier to think of good anti-war songs than good pro-war songs, except perhaps Irish rebellion songs ("The Minstrel Boy" being a particular favorite, closely followed by the sort-of anti-war "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye/Fighting for Strangers"). Art Buchwald claimed that one of the reasons the Vietnam war was so unpopular was the lack of a good fighting song like WW1's "Over There" (by none less than George M. Cohan).

Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Take it on the run,
On the run, on the run.
Hear them calling, you and me,
Every son of liberty.
Hurry right away,
No delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad
To have had such a lad.
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line.
(chorus sung twice)

Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Johnnie show the Hun
Who's a son of a gun.
Hoist the flag and let her fly,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
Pack your little kit,
Show your grit, do your bit.
Yankee to the ranks,
From the towns and the tanks.
Make your mother proud of you,
And the old Red, White and Blue.
(chorus sung twice)

Chorus
Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word over there -
That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming
Ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r,
Send the word, send the word to beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's over
Over there.

Click here (http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/Enrico%20Caruso%20-%20Over%20There.mp3) to hear Enrico Caruso sing this one.

Who Has the Best Tunes?

[(Anonymous)]

Roger D. Branigin made a similar observation about war songs when he ran as a hawkish favorite son candidate in the Indiana Democratic primary in 1968. To hear him tell it, World War I was the only war to begin with suitably catchy songs for people to sing.

He came in third behind Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene J. McCarthy.

Re: Who Has the Best Tunes?

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, Branigin came in second with 31% to Kennedy's 42% but ahead ot McCarthy's 27%. Branigin ran as a favorite son for President Lyndon Johnson but saw his numbers fall after Johnson decided not to seek another term.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind each of us all belongs.
He may have won all the battles,
But we had all the good songs.

-- Tom Lehrer, Folk Song Army

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Or, to quote some near-contemporaries of Lehrer:

"Blue Meanies have been spotted in the neighborhood of this theatre. There's only one way to go out...SINGING!"

I can't believe nobody's brought up "It's A Long Way to Tipperary" yet.

Long, Long Way

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know Bill Caddick's "Writing of Tipperary," which details how Jack Judge wrote the song to win a bet?

June Tabor does a beautiful version of it in on her *Quiet Eye* album.