The Freedoms We've Been Fighting For

Annotation

Tom Parrott, born in Washington D.C., USA, in 1944, a prominent member of the contemporary folk scene in the 1960s, wrote many political songs addressing the Vietnam War, such as the song "The Freedoms We've Been Fighting For" (1967), the song "Hole in the Ground" (1968), and two songs about the My Lai massacre: "The Massacres of My Lai (Song My) and Truong An" (1969) and "Pinkville Helicopter" (1971). He frequently appeared in Broadside, with eleven songs published.1 This was a mimeographed publication founded in 1962 by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, that promoted contemporary folk and protest songs. It also had a music label: Broadside Records. It usually published both lyrics and notations of songs, as well as articles and interviews about folk music, and newspaper clippings of current events. While many of the songs would have been played at the folk clubs and festivals, not all of them were recorded.The contemporary folk song song "The Freedoms We've Been Fighting For" by Tom Parrott of course took an anti-war / peace perspective, highlighting the hypocrisy in American foreign policy, running through a series of historical events. This included Indigenous Americans: "we drove the Indians from their land... for they were not red men's freedoms that we were fighting for", and onto the Civil Rights issue, noting that for the Civil War, "emancipation was the cause", however, "the slavery of two hundred years lived another hundred more, for they were not Negro freedoms that we were fighting for". On to the Vietnam War: "our boys in Viet Nam drive out the Viet Cong, behind them come the landlords to continue all their wrongs".Sources1Index of Songs by Author 1-144, part 1↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: We've fought a thousand battles. We've won a hundred wars / From the bloody ridge at Gettysburg to China's "Open Door" / And it's written in our history, it's recorded in our lore / All the wonder of the freedoms that we've been fighting for We drove the Indians from their land, their hallowed grounds to till / They went if they were savvy / If they stayed they all were killed / And it didn't matter that this land belonged to them before / For they were not red men's freedoms that we were fighting for / And when we crossed the mountains to the California side / And gold was found at Sutter's Mill, no force could stem the tide / Freedom was the battle cry but greed was at the core / And they were not Mexican freedoms that we were fighting for / And when the Civil War came and fathers killed their sons / Emancipation was the cause for which it all was done / But the slavery of two hundred years lived another hundred more / For they were not Negro freedoms that we were fighting for / And when our boys in Viet Nam drive out the Viet Cong / Behind them come the landlords to continue all their wrongs / And a government of tyranny treats its country like a whore / Are they Oriental freedoms that we are fighting for? / And when we rise to speak our minds against the cancer's spread / We're told that we're responsible for the rising toll of dead / Then we're battered and we're beaten for we stand against this war / Tell me, where are all the freedoms that you say we're…

Notes

Broadside Records BR 306, "The Time Will Come and other songs from Broadside Magazine", © 1967 Broadside Records, 701 Seventh Ave., New York, New York 10036; Library of Congress Catalogue Card No. R67-4140. The cover drawing, of the Kitchen Sing, O'Farrell Street, San Francisco (a heart on the wall reads "Love one another, the time is at hand"), is by Agnes Friesen; the cover lists Elaine White, Will McLean, Teatro Campesino, Chris Gaylord, Blind Girl Grunt, Paul Kaplan, Tom Parrott, Zachary 2 and Matthew Jones. Side II, Band 3 is "I've Been Told" by Paul Kaplan (Kaplan), and Band 4 "Freedoms We've Been Fighting For" by Tom Parrott, with John Mackiewicz on 2nd guitar (Parrott). The eight-page "Broadside Vol. 4" booklet in the pocket opens with a note by Gordon Friesen describing this as the fourth in a series of records of performer/songwriters singing songs first printed in Broadside…

About the artist

Born 1944, Washington, DC, USA.

Themes

Anti-War · Fighting For

In collections

Civil Rights Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]