The Danish Peace Academy

Songbook

Bring them Home

(Tekst: Pete Seeger, Barbara Dane & GI soldiers)
Melodi: Pete Seeger

Music and tag line by Pete Seeger

New words by B. Dane and GIs from Ft. Hood 11/9/69

(follow this form throughout)

If you love your Uncle Sam,
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home
Stop the war in Vietnam!
Bring 'em home, bring 'em home.

45 thousand dead and gone
And Uncle Sam is in the wrong!

We wanta end this war right now.
Don't take a genius to figure out how.

Let 'em fly, or let 'em float,
Pack 'em up in a bi-ass boat!

They said it was a freedom fight,
Well now that's just about half right!

There's just one big fallacy,
It's our own GIs that wanta be free.

GIs fight, and GIs die,
Some get rich while Nixon lies.

In Chicago or Vietnam,
They're tryin' to get us to be "the man".

Well buddy, l've got news for you.
l got better things to do.

We're goin' down to Houston town,
Turn this murderin' system 'round.

The gen'rals would like us all to pray,
But it looks like marchin's the only way.

If they say that's not the way,
We'll give 'em one big "FTA"*

(verses not heard on record due to time:)

They call us a bunch of hippie kids,
But wait'll they find out what we did!

They say we blow our minds with dope,
But you know, our youth is our only hope!

l'm gonna let Vietnam alone,
Fight for my own rights here at home!

If you big brass don't know what to do,
We won't kiss your ass and fight for you!

Home of the brave, land of the free,
Let the Vietnam people be.

Wash the blood off of our hands,
Bring our men back to our land.

Well l may be short and l may be tall,
But l sure ain't shaped like a cannonball!

We been marching a long, long time,
But today we're marching with our minds!

*FTA=Army version: "Fun, Travel and Adventure"
GI version: "Fuck the Army!"

PAREDON RECORDS exists because-

People's movements all over the world need to communicate and to define themselves free of the cultural manipulation and economic control of the system's media.

We are tired of contributing the innovations, style, and energy that this system is only too happy to bring to the marketplace and to use as its liberal window dressing. We are tired of legitimizing "the man's" instruments of cultural control through our own participation.

People's movements are finding voices to express their determination to survive and to prevail. This expression will soon become a torrent and must be made readily available to everybody, without exploiting such materials for individual profit.

We must put "the man's" technology to work on behalf of the people's struggles. We must respond to the networks of television and radio, bigger-than-life billboards, and wrap-around screens that surround us. We must use our intelligence to create guerrilla theater, plug-in-anywhere 16mm film, simple chants and shouts that can travel like seed on the wind—and phonograph records that can be made quickly and can travel from hand to hand.

Therefore, PAREDON RECORDS-

Will respond to the needs of people's struggles, and not to the demands of some corporate balance sneet.

Will seek out the music and speech, documentary or dialogue, that spring from the conscious artist who relates to people's movements, and which pour from all people in struggle.

Will never issue dividends or profits, but will use all money earned to produce other materials to help educate and define ourselves.

Will make it possible for groups and organizations to use materials issued to raise funds for their own work.

Will maintain open and honest relations with all individuals, groups and organizations—both here and abroad— and will conduct its affairs with a revolutionary morality.

'Between 1970 and 1985, Paredon Records released fifty albums that covered major left-wing and liberation movements on five continents during the turbulent years of the 1970s. Founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber, the mission of Paredon Records was to use music as a tool to promote social and political activism. Feminists, union organizers, communists, and many other types of social activists recorded music with Paredon Records with the hope that the uplifting power of music would inspire people to be agents of social change.'

http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/archives_10.aspx

and

http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/searchresults.aspx?sPhrase=Paredon%20Records&sType=label

Top