War Song
1973 · RCA AYL1-3820 · USA
- Artist
- Jon Lucien
- Title
- War Song
- Release
- Rashida
- Year
- 1973
- Label
- RCA # AYL1-3820
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Soul, Gospel & Funk · Soul
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Jon Lucien (1942-2007), from the Virgin Islands, released the soul-jazz track "The War Song" (RCA Records # APL1-0161), which took an anti-war position. It was written by Lucien, with the orchestra arranged by Dave Grusin. He mainly focused on children / young people been sent to war by the government: "when your son comes of age, they tell him, pack his sack". He noted their deaths, with "mothers crying, young boys dying", while some returned to the US with disabilities: "the leg you lost...to humanity". The song's central message was to "save the children, stop the killin'".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
Jon Lucien (born Lucien Leopold Harrigan, 8 January 1942 in Tortola, British Virgin Islands; died 18 August 2007 in Orlando, Florida, aged 65, of respiratory failure) was a jazz, soul and rhythm-and-blues vocalist raised in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, discovered at a New York party by an RCA executive and marketed by the label - to his own discomfort - as a 'black Sinatra'; he recorded for RCA, Columbia and Mercury across four decades, his best-known song being 'Lady Love'. "The War Song", written by Lucien himself, appeared on his RCA Victor album 'Rashida' (APL1-0161, 1973), an…