Requiem for the Masses
1967 · Warner Bros. ST 91317 · Burbank, California
- Artist
- The Association
- Title
- Requiem for the Masses
- Release
- Insight Out
- Year
- 1967
- Label
- Warner Bros. # ST 91317
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- Burbank, California, USA
- Songwriter
- Terry Kirkman
- Genre
- Psychedelia · Psychedelic Pop
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The psychedelic pop song "Requiem for the Masses" (Warner Bros. Records # ST 91317), released as a B-side in 1967 (see Requiem for the Masses), took an anti-war position. Composed by Terry Kirkman, it did not mention the Vietnam conflict. However, in a recent interview Kirkman said that the song provided an "analogy to the many young American soldiers killed in Vietnam". According to Kirkman, the government also sought to stop the promotion of the record: "requiem for the Masses was inspired by the group's rough charter flight during a Midwest snowstorm to a concert in Milwaukee....The anti-war sentiment then surfaced with the lament of a bullfighter who lay dying in the ring far away from his homeland. The obvious analogy to the many young American soldiers killed in Vietnam did not go unnoticed by the U.S. Government...Program directors and disc jockeys found it just a little more relevant to the times and turned the record over and started treating the song like an 'A' side. Before long about 12 significant markets had begun doing the same thing. That's when the Nixon White House made a phone call to Warner Bros. Records. They asked the label to ignore the market demand to treat the record like a hit single...Warner Bros....complied with the government's wishes and that was that." (1) Suggested by koeeoaddi_there.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: Mama, mama, forget your pies / Have faith they won't get cold, and turn your eyes to the bloodshot sky / Your flag is flying full at half mast for the matadors / Who turned their backs to please the crowd / And all fell before the bull / Black and white were the figures that recorded him / Black and white was the newsprint he was mentioned in / Black and white was the question that so bothered him / He never asked, he was taught not to ask / But was on his lips as they buried him
Notes
Warner Bros. Records 7074 (K15853), red label, "From the Warner Bros. Album W/WS 1696 Insight Out"; "Requiem for the Masses" (Terry Kirkman), Beechwood Music Corp., BMI, 3:49; produced by Bones Howe; "Billings" stamped over the logo. [From the record sleeve and labels]
About the artist
American pop band formed 1965 in Los Angeles, California ('Requiem for the Masses'). [Source: Wikipedia]