To the Right - March!

Annotation — Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs

Born Jacqueline Steiner (11 September 1924) in New York, USA, she was an American folk singer and social activist who played an active part in the 1950s and 1960s folk scene, collaborating with Pete Seeger on the 1954 album Hootenanny Tonight! (under her married name Jackie Berman). In 1966 she released the anti-Vietnam War album "No More War" (Cutty Wren Records # CWR 101).1 She died on 25 January 2019.2 The title track "No More War" centred around a speech given by Pope Paul VI to the United Nations General Assembly on 4 October 1965, captured on several LPs, including Mission to America, October 4, 1965 (Columbia Records # xx2). The Pope diplomatically did not mention any specific conflict, but sent out a general message of peace: "the blood of millions of men...useless massacres and fearful ruins have sealed the pact united you with a vow which must change the future of the world: Never again war, war never again! Peace".3 This criticism contrasted to some American Church leaders who backed President Johnson in Vietnam - most notably Cardinal Francis Spellman (as dealt with in the "Dean Rusk Song" by Bill Frederick on the 1967 album Hey, Hey...LBJ! discussed below, and in the unrecorded Tom Paxton song "The Cardinal" published in Broadside # 80, May 1967). The lyrics also re-phrased another section of the Pope's speech: "we can't be brothers 'till the weapons fall from our hands". Broadside published the lyrics to "No More War" in # 75 in October 1966, accompanied by a lengthy explanation of the song - written the day after the Pope's speech, Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber aired an early demo recording on 6 October 1965, two days after the speech, on the WBAI radio station. Sources1Billboard, 18 March 1967↩2The New York Times: Jacqueline steiner dead↩3Paul VI, Speech to the United Nations Organization, 4 October 1965 (vatican.va)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Civil Rights Songs

The song "To the Right - March", also from the album No More War (Cutty Wren Records # CWR 101), mocked those that supported the war in Vietnam, accusing some of being racist and warmongering. It contained many key topics, from Anti-Vietnam War, to Civil Rights, the Cold War with Russians, reference to the Korea War and the atomic bomb, with the narrator declaring that "I'm white and free" and that "all these Jewish negro Catholics Protestant things against the war" should be sent to Russia or taken into an alley to set them straight.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: To the right, march, I'm a member of the 100% American volunteers / I'm marching to join up in the next few year / Let's free the yellow gooks, let's civilise the gooks / Let's hit the chinky commies smack in their stinking rears / I'm white and free and 43 and all of my blood is red / Not a single doubt has ever penetrated my higher head / My country never wrong / God blessed us because we're strong / Just give us a gone and an enemy and we'll fill them full of lead / All these Jewish negro Catholics Protestant things against the war / Send them back to Russia, China, Africa, Singapore / It's treason not to hate / Let's set the cowards straight / Just get them out the alley and let them know the score / Oh we should have beaten the Russian way back in '45 / And then gone after China after the Korean jive / The world is in our way/ Let's drop a bomb today / Cause people can't go communist if none of them are alive / March to the right...

About the artist

Born Jacqueline Steiner (11 September 1924) in New York, USA

Themes

Anti-War · Civil Rights · Cold War · Russia · Korea · Atomic

In collections

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