Save the country
From what? For whom?
Laura Nyro’s song “Save the Country” was released less than three weeks after the June, 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy. The 5th Dimension’s more elaborately produced 1970 cover would be a Billboard top 10 hit, but Laura’s emotional gospel-tinged version conveys the message a whole lot better.
Come on, people! Come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river
Gonna wash you up, and wash you down
Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down
Sounds like an old-fashioned revival meeting. We will all be baptized in the glory river.
Come on, people! Come on, children!
There's a king at the glory river
And the precious king, he loved the people to sing
Babies in the blinkin' sun sang, "We shall overcome"
But now, the river takes on a supernatural component. The recently assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. will be with us, and we SHALL overcome.
I’ve got fury in my soul
Fury's gonna take me to the glory goal
In my mind I can't study war no more
Save the people! Save the children!
Save the country, save the country now!
The seemingly endless and drastically ill-advised war in Vietnam is in full throttle. Laura is “Down by the Riverside,” and she can’t study war no more. We’ve got to save the people, the children, and the country NOW. She’s driven by an otherworldly fury!
Come on, people! Come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river
Gonna wash you up and wash you down
Gonna lay the devil, long lay the devil
Lay that devil down!Come on people! Sons and mothers!
Keep the dream of the two young brothers
Gonna take that dream and ride that dove
We can build the dream with love, I know
And now, she invokes the two Kennedy brothers, John and Robert, both assassinated. Their dreams can still be built with love. And, don’t forget the dove of peace.
We could build the dream with love, I know
We could build the dream with love, childrenWe could build the dream with love, oh people
We can build the dream with love, I know
We can build the dream with loveI’ve got fury in my soul
Fury’s gonna take me to the glory goal
In my mind I can't study war no more
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country!
Save the country! Save the country! Save the country! Now…
The “glory goal” is peace, and love will get us there. After all, it’s God’s own glory.
Only 20 years old at the time, and full of passion and naivete, Laura was definitely caught up in the 60s vibe. Perhaps at that point, about four years after the absurd War on Poverty was launched, it was too soon for all but hardened cynics and political observers to see that both wars—the one on poverty and the one in Vietnam were destined to be complete failures.
Once the accounting was done, after spending trillions of dollars, we discovered that money—apparently—does not cure poverty; and more than 58,000 members of our armed forces died for nothing. Still, the defense contractors and the Beltway bandits did just fine. Heck, the ghoulish war mongers and poverty pimps are with us to this very day.
As a thought experiment, consider any time that our government created some sort of “Save the Country” initiative. The War on Terror mostly increased the fascist surveillance state. Our efforts against COVID—the virus of which was devised with the full faith and credit of the government—produced disastrous lockdowns and an inconceivably toxic vaccine that will have consequences for decades. Meanwhile, the massive corruption all around us continues unabated.
Maybe, we should save the country from “Save the Country” programs.
[Lyrics quoted as “fair use.”]
Amen, brother. As always, well said.
Isn’t it ironic that the antiestablishment generation that warned us that Nixon was comin (e.g., Neil Young, Jane Fonda, etc.)were/are the very ones who had no tolerance for those who dared to voice opposition and/or an effective alternative to the government mandated vaccine (e.g., Dr. Zelenko, Joe Rogan). In the famous words of Major Frank Burns, “Unless we follow our leaders blindly there is no possible way we can remain free!”