A Folk Song for Dark Times

By Restless [Originally on goofyblog 5.4.07]

I guess I’m really just an old hippie. But you see, that word doesn’t mean the same to me as it does to those who use it now. Because being a “hippie” in the late ’60s - early ’70s meant living through a series of Constitutional crises, public demonstrations full of riot police, clashes with draft boards.

I don’t know how to tell you this in any other way: to a lot of us, it started looking like we were headed towards a dictatorship. It didn’t happen: the demonstrations against the Vietnam war and the draft, along with the Watergate revelations, topped with the Supreme Court’s backing of freedom of the press in the New York Times publication of the embarassing and revelatory Ellsberg papers turned things around. The heavy casualties of the losing war aided the change.

Our 2 other branches (Judicial and Legislative) acted decisively to limit an out of control Executive; the 4th Estate came through with extremely damaging evidence of Executive misconduct; whistelblowers like Daniel Ellsberg succeeded in revealing the extent of the deceit in our war policies.

You know how after a highly-publicized trial, if the defendant gets acquitted, he’ll usually say something like: “My faith in the American system of justice is restored! God Bless America!”
That’s how we felt in 1973.

But, in 1972, in the darkest hours, the following song began being broadcast on FM stations in the Bay Area. I thought of it the other day and found the full verse on Blue Gal’s blogsite.

When you read the lyric, I know you’ll think a great deal of it is quaint — the references to being persecuted for looking like Jesus or like a “sister,” speaking Spanish on a plane (all the hijakers of the era wanted to go to Cuba), laying around the house smoking marijuana — it’s got more hippy in it than I recall.

But I’m sure a few of the lines will stick with you.

Oh, mommy
I ain’t no commie
I’m just doing what I can
To live the good all-American way
It says right there in the Constitution
It’s really A-OK to have a revolution
When the leaders that you choose
Really don’t fit the shoes
Oh, mister
I ain’t no sister
I believe in the Bill of Rights
Come on, don’t you start a fight, please
I like to wear my hair long
How can there be anything wrong
When you already accused me twice
Of looking like Jesus Christ, Hallelujah
I’m only gettin’ tired of playing Punch and Judy
I’ve really half a mind to go and do my duty
Like Mr. Patrick Henry said
I got to be free or dead
Mr. Nixon
I ain’t a-fixin’
To speak Spanish on a plane
Or polish off the Liberty Bell
I just want to sit here on the shelf
And watch you finish off the place by yourself
Please let me do what I wanna
I’ll just lay around the house and smoke marijuana
It says right there in the Constitution
It’s really A-OK to have a revolution
When the leader that you made
Just don’t make the grade
Oh, mommy
I ain’t no commie
But I hate to bust your bubble
Cause there’s gonna be some trouble soon
(Brewer and Shipley, 1972)