SYABAS JOMBANGKIT

“If Music be the food of love, play on,” said a character in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

If Americans won the war in Vietnam FOR the Viet Congs, it definitely DID thru antiwar music!

An initiative to make changes through MUSIC in Malaysia has begun HERE 

People, give our young people all the support you can muster. Meanwhile some useful background reading could help.

Influence Of Protest Music

Protest music has been with civilization, probably from when time began. I would assume that once a stringed instrument was conceptualized there had to be a troubadour somewhere singing a song with a message.  We had and listened to the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Big Bill Bronsy singing songs to encourage union organizers. During the civil rights movement, there were the likes of Harry Belafonte, the Weavers, Peter Yarrow, Josh White and Bob Dylan inspiring African Americans who wanted nothing more than to exercise their constitutional rights.

The antiwar music of the Vietnam era took the children of the 60’s to a different level. Musicians of this generation took the guitar strumming troubadour from the coffee houses, plugged them in, and sent the music and the message into the college dorm rooms and the homes of the youth of America.

This generation was not going to sit idly by while the US government lied to their people about what was going on in Vietnam. Moreover, this was the first generation where combat veterans were returning prior to the end of the war and exposing the lies and pretzel logic that put young Americans in Vietnam to begin with. This social climate, plus musicians who became the collective conscience of this generation through their lyrics and music became the foundation of ending a barbaric and unjust war, which the government tried to sweep under the rug by calling it a 'conflict' or  'policing'.

We heard and read of barbaric acts, political corruption, insane military missions and of course wondering why blacks and other minorities, poor white kids, and less fortunate male youths were being drafted, while the more fortunate white males were enjoying life on college campuses or cushy jobs in the armed forces reserves. This had all the appearances of a bunch of old men sitting in Washington, D.C. and making uninformed decisions which would send young men halfway across the world to die in order to stroke their egos. Of course this was all shaded in the pretense of preserving the world for democracy.

Once returned to the world, the music became even more meaningful and thought provoking as the war continued on. Song lyrics became an inspiration for  anti-war Vets. They were angry, distrusting and cynical about anything the government had to say about Vietnam.

Those of my age witnessed WOODSTOCK and songs and ballads like People Have the Power (Patti Smith), Jefferson Airplane (Mason Profitt), What are their Names (Chicago), What About Me (QMS), Bring ‘Em Home (Pete Seeger), Draft Dodger Rag (Phil Ochs), Give Peace a Chance (John Lennon), Tom Paxton’s Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation, War (Edwin Starr) and Where Have All the Flowers Gone which today found its place in most protest rallies. These songs and many more that escapes me at this moment, kept us Malaysians in touch with the dead and dying in Vietnam.

 But perhaps the best way to summarize the effect of the Vietnam War in song and message is through a song written by the late Steve Goodman which I believe could be the mother of all anti-war songs. Goodman recorded this song acapella.

I’d like to share the raw truth behind these haunting lyrics……I suggest you activate the youtube and scroll back to follow the lyrics.

Ballad Of Penny Evans
Steve Goodman (1971)

 
My Name Is Penny Evans And My Age Is Twenty-One
I'm A Widow Of The War That Was Fought In Vietnam
I Have Two Baby Daughters And I Do The Best I Can
They Say The War Is Over But I Think It's Just Begun

I Remember I Was Seventeen When First I Met My Bill
At His Father's Grand Piano We Played Old 'Heart And Soul'
I Only Knew The Left Hand Part, He Knew The Right So Well
He's The Only Boy I Slept With, And The Only One I Will

First We Had A Baby Girl, We Had Two Good Years
And Next The Warning Notice Came, We Parted Without Tears
Then It's Nine Months From Our Last Goodbye Our Second Child Appears
And It's Ten Months And A Telegram Confirming All Our Fears

So Once A Month I Get A Check From Some Army Bureaucrat
And Once A Month I Tear It Up And Mail The Damn Thing Back
Do They Think That Makes It All Right? Do They Think I'll Fall For That
They Can Keep Their Bloody Money, It Won't Bring My Billy Back

I Never Cared For Politics, Speeches I Don't Understand
Likewise I'll Take No Charity From Any Living Man
But Tonight There's Fifty Thousand Gone In That Unhappy Land
And Fifty Thousand 'Heart And Souls' Being Played With Just One Hand

My Name Is Penny Evans And My Age Is Twenty-One
I'm A Widow Of The War That Was Fought In Vietnam
I Have Two Baby Daughters - Thank God I Have No Son
They Say The War Is Over But I Think It's Just Begun