The Ballad of Penny Evans
1973 · Buddah BDS 5121 · USA
- Artist
- Steve Goodman
- Title
- The Ballad of Penny Evans
- Release
- Somebody Else's Troubles
- Year
- 1973
- Label
- Buddah # BDS 5121
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Songwriter
- Steve Goodman
- Genre
- Folk · Contemporary Folk
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The song "The Ballad of Penny Evans" (Buddah Records # BDS 5121) was about the impact of a soldier's death on his family back home in the US: "I'm a widow of the war that was fought in Vietnam". The widow leaned towards the anti-war side, criticising the death of 50,000 US soldiers. The negative impact on the family portrayed in the song painted Vietnam, and war in general, as a senseless waste and destroying a family.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: 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... / It's nine months from our last goodbye / Our second child appears / And it's ten months and a telegram confirming all our fears / 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
Notes
Broadway musical
About the artist
American singer-songwriter, born 25 July 1948 in Chicago, Illinois; died 20 September 1984 in Seattle, Washington. [Source: Wikipedia]