He's Not Just a Soldier
1969 · Freeway TW-9 · Las Vegas, Nevada
- Artist
- Thomas Douglas
- Title
- He's Not Just a Soldier
- Release
- He's Not Just a Soldier / He's Got the Whole World
- Year
- 1969
- Label
- Freeway # TW-9
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
- Songwriter
- William Pitt & Richard Penniman
- Genre
- Folk · Psychedelic Folk
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The song He's Not Just a Soldier (Douglas, Thomas) (Freeway Records # TW-9) Anti-War / Credibility Gap. Psychedelic Folk. Recorded 21 June 1969. Los Vegas, Nevada, USA. Composed by William Pitt & Richard Penniman (aka Little Richard). Based on the Little Richard 1962 single He's Not Just a Soldier.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: It gets more difficult everyday to keep quiet / Men are being killed overseas / They're being crippled, blinded, subjected to inhuman cruelties / You'll have a hard time convincing these men that there's no war going on / Meanwhile, back in the US no one has got around to declaring a war / After all it's only 200 men being killed each week / Maybe if we don't get mad we could avoid another war / It's nothing serious, not much worse than Pearl Harbor / Meanwhile in Vietnam another healthy 18 year old marine gets shot in the side of the head / He's going to live but he'll lose his eyesight / His face will be disfigured / He's going to spend the rest of his life making little license plates for key chains / You know the kind you get each year from the disabled veteran / Meanwhile back in the US, Congress is getting mad, their voting on an important bill to decide what to write on cigarette packs / Then they'll decide which TV shows need censoring / Maybe I'm wrong, but somehow it seems more important to protect the fighting men from bullets... / / Meanwhile in Vietnam nobody knows what is going on / American tax payers are keeping the old meat grinder turning / Meanwhile, back in the US a 14 year old boy is looking forward to a great future / In a few more years he'll be able to buy a car / In 3 years he'll be graduating from high school / In 4 years he'll be laying in a pool of blood in a rice paddy / Remembers when we fought wars to win... / And if a war wasn't worth…
Notes
Based on the Little Richard 1962 single He's Not Just a Soldier. Freeway Records TW-9-A, yellow label, stereo, 45 rpm; "He's Not Just a Soldier" (William Pitt, Richard Penniman), 4:07, Wocoman Music, BMI; "Recorded in Las Vegas June 21, 1969". [From the record sleeve and labels]
Themes
Anti-War · Credibility Gap · Disabled Vet · Vet · Anti-Government · WW2 · Attack on Pearl Harbor