Artist Holly Near

Release Hang in There

Year 1973

Label Redwood # RRS 3800

Format LP · Album

Country USA

Language English, Vietnamese

Songs here 10 in the archive

1973 · Album · Redwood # RRS 3800 · USA

Holly Near, prominent 60s/70s political contemporary folksinger / singer-songwriter, born 6 June 1949 in Ukiah, California, USA, and founder of the record label Redwood Records. Near released dozens of protest songs, focusing on war, Civil Rights, women's equality, human rights, ecology, and other social and cultural issues. This album, Hang in There primarily focused on the Vietnam War. Holly Near had frequently taken part in anti-war demonstrations, and in 1971 joined the FTA Tour ("Free the Army"), an anti-Vietnam War roadshow. Organised by Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Fred Gardner, it was seen as a response to Bob Hope's USO tour (On the Road to Vietnam). The footage resulted in the 1972 film F.T.A. [Fuck the Army], as well as featuring in the 2005 documentary Sir! No Sir!¹²³ Also note that Near released the song "It Could Have Been Me" on the 1974 album "A Live Album" (Redwood Records # 3700), a response to the Kent State shooting. The song "No More Genocide" (Redwood Records # RRS 3800) took a strong anti-war position, questioning the death in Vietnam, and the purpose behind the war: "why do we say North and South?" . The narrator argued that "our history books so full of lies" - referencing Indigenous American and Hispanic history: "why the Indian dies, or why the Chicanos love the California land" . The song included a reference to Civil Rights / African-American discrimination in army recruitment: "why are so many of our soldiers black or brown?" . It also noted that it was the young that were sent to war by the old. It then addressed Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, recalling "two men from the world of secrecy" (of course Ellsberg, and his less famous colleague, Anthony Russo from RAND who helped smuggled the papers). The narrator noted "I read the Pentagon Papers, seeking truth in their history" , including a look at the US government objective in South Vietnam: "preserving a democracy" . The chorus, repeated at the end of the song, states "that's just a lie... no more genocide in my name" .

The songs