June 1971: Freda Payne's anti-war song "Bring The Boys Home"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

FREDA PAYNE - "Bring The Boys Home" lyrics

Fathers are pleading, lovers are all alone
Mothers are praying-send our sons back home
You marched them away-yes, you did-on ships and planes
To the senseless war, facing death in vain

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Turn the ships around, lay your weapons down

Can't you see 'em march across the sky, all the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home-can't you see them tryin' to get home?
Tryin' to get home-they're tryin' to get home
Cease all fire on the battlefield
Enough men have already been wounded or killed

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Turn the ships around, lay your weapons down
(Mothers, fathers and lovers, can't you see them)

Oooh, oooh...
Tryin' to get home-can't you see them tryin' to get home?
Oooh, oooh...
Tryin' to get home-they're tryin' to get home

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
What they doing over there, now (bring 'em back alive)
When we need them over here, now (bring 'em back alive)
What they doing over there, now (bring 'em back alive)
When we need them over here, now (bring 'em back alive)

[latebloomer]

1. Great song

which needs to be revived!!

[Tom Kitten]

2. I remember that song

I heard it a couple times and never again on the radio, I heard it got banned. This was right after her #1 hit Band of Gold and I don't ever recall hearing her on the radio after that.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

3. Right, those were her two hits...

I think that in the year 2005 we take a lot for granted. We have stuff available to us and we are so accustomed to having it as a part of our daily lives that we lose track of how far we've come.

We have the Internet, we have cable news, and no matter how many distractions BushCo tries to throw our way, we have our world under a 24 hour a day microscope. During the Viet Nam era, the government was MUCH MORE "successful" when it came to hiding things from the American people.

When Freda sang that song, it wasn't the norm. It was controversial. It took one hell of a lot of courage. It was a pure, emotional song about a senseless war.

34 years later, it rings just as true.

:toast:

[Tom Kitten]

4. You're pretty spot on there

and boy am I guilty too (but I might add as a qualifier not quite as much as some possible others out there but don't mind that for now)

I'm glad I'm going to be meeting some other DUers in person soon...I have thoughts and actually some possible ideas for things to do.