Universal Soldier – a song written by Buffty St. Marie debuting on her 1964 “It’s My Way” album.
How pertinent is this song today? If there were no soldiers would there still be war? Have we become so used to war that we really don’t believe it’s still an item?
This is US Memorial Day. I feel fiercely adamant about taking care of our soldiers which from what I can tell we don’t do very well if at all in this shining age of progress and technology.
But still there’s war thinking – our own contemplations of where we stand in our own hearts and minds.
“Universal Soldier” is a song written and recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. The song was originally released on Sainte-Marie’s debut album It’s My Way! in 1964. “Universal Soldier” was not a popular hit at the time of its release, but it did garner attention within the contemporary folk music community. Sainte-Marie said of the song: “I wrote ‘Universal Soldier’ in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It’s about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all.” (From Wikipedia)
I sing the song.
“Memorialize the dead without glorifying the war.”
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