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'One Tin Soldier' song makes no sense


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2021 Mar 28, 2:38pm   684 views  16 comments

by Rin   ➕follow (8)   💰tip   ignore  

Why "One Tin Soldier" makes no sense, esp once you're no longer a dumb hippy from the 60s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO0QLHVYWiQ

====
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 the stone
And the valley-people swore
They'd have it for their very own

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 blowing
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

It came an answer from the mountain
With our brothers we will share
All the secrets of our mountain
All the riches buried there

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 blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

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

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 blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away

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 blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away
====

For the longest time, I've wondered why this song was suppose to make sense?

Ok, so you have these so-called 'Mountain Folks' with a buried treasure, who're allegedly hoarding it from the 'Valley Folks'. Were these 'Mountain Folks' some aristocrats (or dwarves of the "Lord of the Rings") who'd hoarded a gold mine from the commoners for all of these decades just to create a type of hegemonic power base? I doubt it because they were willing to share it with everyone.

Hmm ... this is strange and goes against all class/social warfare manifestations where the landlords have everything while the serfs toil the land.

Next, do these 'Valley Folks' need some mysterious hidden treasure? No, at most, they're probably a bunch of sociopathic serial killers because they want to steal it for the sake of vanity/pride without sharing any of the scrapes. Realize, a shared commodity is not a hidden treasure, physical gold is $1500+/oz because it's rare, hard to mine, & not pieces of fiat money.

So what's the message of the song? If your Valley region neighbors are psycho, perhaps you need to invest in 'Greek Fire' a.k.a Napalm and kill off enough of the Valley region before they try to commit genocide on your Swiss village mountain top.

Comments 1 - 16 of 16        Search these comments

1   Ceffer   2021 Mar 28, 2:42pm  

It's Peter, Paul & Mary Hippie Shit. Live with it.
2   Rin   2021 Mar 28, 2:47pm  

Ceffer says
It's Peter, Paul & Mary Hippie Shit. Live with it.


Ok, but at least they could have written a better song where let's say 10% of the Mountain top were aristocrats, creating pieces of paper, backed up by the gold under the mountain.

At least that would get the Valley ppl to kill the other 90% of the Mountain ppl who're basically the cleaners, blacksmiths, stable boys, etc, who work for the top 10%, realizing that in the end, they killed others just like them, so that in the end, the aristocrats ran off with the gold through a subterranean passage to Zurich.
3   Ceffer   2021 Mar 28, 2:56pm  

It's supposed to be inchoate righteous indignation and free form, knee jerk sentimentality. Don't overthink it.
4   Rin   2021 Mar 28, 3:14pm  

This is why I don't like hippies.

This incoherent free form is like Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", a journal which inspired countless slackers out there into thinking that bumming around was a career move.
5   Tenpoundbass   2021 Mar 28, 4:59pm  

It was the soundtrack song for Billy Jack, and it was produced in a time, when all music productions had the big over produced "Ooh and Ahhh" along with orchestration arrangements, when just a simple acoustic guitar would have sufficed. Especially for that movie, you would have thought a Jim Croce song would have fit the bill.


It's that 70's Soundtrack sound. It could have been used to sell Buicks, or Hawaiian Punch.

Other examples of songs that took a boring shitty song and over produced.

Up up and away in a beautiful balloon.
The night the lights went out in Georgia
Please Come to Boston (This one has a chorus that sounds big like One tin soldier, but it has some acoustic music space in-between it. this song explains my critique about that song best.)
6   HeadSet   2021 Mar 28, 5:24pm  

Tenpoundbass says
It was the soundtrack song for Billy Jack, and it was produced in a time, when all music productions had the big over produced "Ooh and Ahhh" along with orchestration arrangements, when just a simple acoustic guitar would have sufficed. Especially for that movie, you would have thought a Jim Croce song would have fit the bill.


It's that 70's Soundtrack sound. It could have been used to sell Buicks, or Hawaiian Punch.

Other examples of songs that took a boring shitty song and over produced.

Up up and away in a beautiful balloon.
The night the lights went out in Georgia
Please Come to Boston (This one has a chorus that sounds big like One tin soldier, but it has some acoustic music space in-between it. this song explains my critique about that song best.)


You must really hate "Octopus's Garden."
7   Rin   2021 Mar 28, 5:39pm  

Nothing wrong with overproduction, making a banal track into some Pop-Rock Opera, it's the message of that so-called anti-war song which makes no sense to me.
8   Tenpoundbass   2021 Mar 28, 6:01pm  

HeadSet says
You must really hate "Octopus's Garden."

That's a campy song, but not in the same league as the songs mentioned here.

Octopus Garden could not be used in these commercials. The offenders mentioned, I think they even produced the tape ripple in those tracks for prosperity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzxPJg8omt8
9   Shaman   2021 Mar 29, 8:20am  

To me it’s warning about the costs of greed and envy. The valley people desired something they didn’t have and got all worked up with their envy until they murdered the mountain people in righteous anger because they imagined they were hoarding a treasure that should have been shared somehow.
It’s pretty relevant to today. The woke are working up the valley people into a socialistic fervor over inequities between people’s lives. Go ahead and hate your neighbor! He’s got lighter skin and is probably oppressing you somehow.
Cheat your friend! He’s got more money than you and that isn’t fair (or right!).
Do it in the name of heaven! Because surely in a perfect society, everyone would be equally rich! And by hoarding this imagined treasure, those wicked white... er mountain people must be breaking one of gods laws of equity!

The one tin soldier is representing what’s left after a very Pyrrhic victory, where nobody really won, but everyone lost what they held most dear.
10   EBGuy   2021 Mar 29, 2:11pm  

The War on Competence
Peterson and Weinstein hit this one out of the park...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjiLGnTn7g
11   richwicks   2021 Mar 29, 2:39pm  

The vast majority of music lyrics make no sense at worst, or are entirely vapid and meaningless at best. That defines popular music.
12   Rin   2021 Mar 29, 3:04pm  

richwicks says
The vast majority of music lyrics make no sense


Have you listened to Metallica's "One"? If there's ever been a song about the horrors of war, with an amazing thrash metal revelation at the end ... that would be it!

Trust me, I've seen 'em perform it live! The best live anti-war and heavy metal track of all time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw

Lyrics:

I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside, I feel the scream
This terrible silence stops with me

Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
That there's not much left to me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh, please God, wake me

Back in the womb, it's much to real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can't look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I lived

Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a war time novelty
Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this shit off from me

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh, please God, wake me
Please God, wake me

Now the world is gone, I'm just one
Oh, God, help me
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh, please God, help me, help me

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see absolute horror
I cannot live, I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body, my holding cell

Land mine has taken my sight
Taken my speech, taken my hearing
Taken my arms, taken my legs
Taken my soul
Leaving me with a life in Hell

Oh, please God, help me
Help me
13   Rin   2021 Mar 29, 3:06pm  

Shaman says
It’s pretty relevant to today. The woke are working up the valley people into a socialistic fervor over inequities between people’s lives. Go ahead and hate your neighbor! He’s got lighter skin and is probably oppressing you somehow.


Now this is a more interesting perspective than that of the original song writers of the 70s.

Your idea is that the song is about "controlled" miscommunications and how that could foment rage and a "cause for vendetta". I don't think the hippies thought about that.
14   stereotomy   2021 Mar 29, 3:14pm  

Rin says
Have you listened to Metallica's "One"? If there's ever been a song about the horrors of war, with an amazing thrash metal revelation at the end ... that would be it!

Trust me, I've seen 'em perform it live! The best live anti-war and heavy metal of all time!


You should try to find the movie "Johnny Got His Gun," or the book of the same name by Dalton Trumbo, on which the Metallica song was probably based. It's even more inflammatory. They talk about Korea being the forgotten war; WWI was absolute, mass insanity and carnage.

In the book, he succeeds in communicating with nurses and doctors through Morse code by using neck movements. I won't spoil the ending for you.
15   Rin   2021 Mar 29, 3:26pm  

stereotomy says


You should try to find the movie "Johnny Got His Gun," or the book of the same name by Dalton Trumbo, on which the Metallica song was probably based. It's even more inflammatory. They talk about Korea being the forgotten war; WWI was absolute, mass insanity and carnage.

In the book, he succeeds in communicating with nurses and doctors through Morse code by using neck movements. I won't spoil the ending for you.


Yes, Metallica bought the rights to the movie, to make their studio music video. Watch my link above, it's all movie clips from "Johnny Got His Gun" interspersed with the band playing.

FYI, no recording does justice to this song. Watch Metallica play it live before they're too old to perform.
16   stereotomy   2021 Mar 29, 4:15pm  

Rin says
Yes, Metallica bought the rights to the movie, to make their studio music video. Watch my link above, it's all movie clips from "Johnny Got His Gun" interspersed with the band playing.

FYI, no recording does justice to this song. Watch Metallica play it live before they're too old to perform.


Thanks. I originally heard the song back in the day when I had a roommate who was into metal/death metal; never saw the later videos/live performances.

I do agree with you that music as I know it largely died in the late 1990's.

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