History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.
Hat tip, Laurence Vance at Antiwar.com
I wonder if anyone was thrown in jail for singing it during WWI. Perhaps Wilson is listening to it in hell right now.
This song cuts much deeper than the typical antiwar song, because it challenges government power in general, and it points an accusing finger at anyone, even someone in a position of governmental authority, who has the impudence to claim the power to dispose of WHAT IS NOT HIS TO DISPOSE OF.
Thus, the song does not simply refer to "the ones who died in vain." It goes on to hurl in the ruler's face, "WHO DARES to place a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother's darling boy?" And finally, and most important, "My boy BELONGS TO ME!" Which is to say, he certainly does not belong to some puffed up nincompoop of a politician, even if by the usual hook and crook he got himself elected to public office, or to any aggregation of such nincompoops.