Saturday, June 10th, 2006
I’ve got your class warfare right here…
This is interesting. According to Wikipedia, the song One Tin Soldier is a 60s anti-war folk song. My first encounter with the song was in church camp in the summer of 1995. I grew up, more or less, in the Disciples of Christ denomination, and our church, along with several other Disciples Churches in central and south Texas (as far south as Corpus Christi) sent their high school-age kids to three such events during the year - two weekend camps (one in the fall, around October, one in the Spring around March) and one week-long camp in early June. From the first time we sang the song that summer, the song struck a chord with me, if you will. Now that I know that it was an anti-war ballad, it has become all that more important to me.
In case you’re wondering here are the lyrics:
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 a stone,
And the valley people swore they’d have it for their very own.
CHORUS:
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 blowin’ come the judgment 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."
REPEAT CHORUS
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.
REPEAT CHORUS
(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Apr. 10, 2006 4:30 PM)
