Bring Our Brothers Home
1972 · Paredon P-1015 · New York City, New York
- Artist
- The Covered Wagon Musicians
- Title
- Bring Our Brothers Home
- Release
- We Say No to Your War!
- Year
- 1972
- Label
- Paredon # P-1015
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- New York City, New York, USA
- Songwriter
- George Herkert
- Genre
- Country · Contemporary Folk
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The song "Bring Our Brothers Home", which pleaded with President Richard Nixon to end the conflict, and it criticised the government's claim that the war protected people's freedom. Words and music by George Herkert.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: You sent us off to fight this war / Bring our brothers home / Now we don't want to fight no more / Bring our brother home / Nixon you're a bloody man to make us fight in foreign lands / You say we're fighing to be free / That ain't what it looks like to me We marched a million miles, a million or more... / We were marching for the air force when we marched before / But now we've charted our own course / We say no to your war... / And it's hotter in Vietnam / Here come the F-4s and they're splattered with napalm / As they hear the engines roar, Nixon, we say no to your war What do we want? Peace, when do we want it? / Now...Boise's biggest, Boise's best, the place to dine, the place to rest... / One day in August in '71, businessmen met, businessmen fun, Westmoreland was their honored guest... / The wine they sipped, the general's brand turned into blood on foreign lands... / From mountain home, 40 miles or more, said we don't want your fucking war / The guest were simply horrified with the chants - not genocide... / They came to seize the criminal, we pointed to the general, take him before others die / He was in charge of Johnson's My Lai / They came with chains to end the song / But chains could never right the wrong / Nor jail cells, change their stand, while children die in other lands
Notes
Paredon P-1015; the front cover reads "Songs written and sung by the Covered Wagon Musicians, active-duty Air Force people, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho" over a photograph of marchers in the desert carrying banners reading "We are taking the GI out of genocide" and "Bring 'em home" (the booklet states the cover photo was taken during the forty-mile march from Mountain Home AFB to Boise in August 1971, on the anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The 16-page booklet lists the members alphabetically (A1C John Carson, A1C Dave Davis, Sgt. Tom Derreck, Sgt. Patrick Henry, A1C George Herkert, A1C Al Kramer, A1C Joe Massaro, Carolyn Mugar, Vic Pacania, Airman Penny Rand, A1C Jim Schaffer, A1C Tom Spaulding) and opens with an introduction calling it the first GI anti-war project to produce its own record, urging listeners to write to the group and subscribe to its paper, The Helping Hand, Box…
About the artist
Group of active-duty US Air Force GIs based at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho (1971-72); recorded the antiwar album We Say No to Your War! (Paredon Records, 1972). [Source: Wikipedia / Discogs]
Themes
From the release We Say No to Your War!
In collections
Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years] · US Military & Veteran Songs · My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs