Tomorrow is Memorial Day. My wife is out of town, working at a meeting called by foreigners who don’t give a toss about American holidays. But every American should take a moment to acknowledge the brave sacrifices made by the members of our armed forces who have served their country. The best way we can honor them is by doing everything possible end all current wars and to keep war from happening again.

Eli Radish “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier” (comp. Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi)
Eli Radish was a little ahead of their time. They were playing country-rock before the Byrds popularized it. They released their first album in 1969 and wanted to give voice to their leftist anti-war politics. So they recorded a collection of traditional patriotic songs about war and bravery, played in a loose-limbed, slightly loopy style. Unfortunately the record buying public didn’t quite understand the album and it sank without much notice.

This song was a rallying cry for the pacifist movement in the U.S. during the run-up to World War I. There’d be no war today if mothers all would say, “I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.” Indeed.

Betty Dylan “Masters Of War” (Bob Dylan)
There have always been people who had other priorities than military service when they were eligible who then have no reservations sending other people’s sons and daughters to war. Bob Dylan matched the cynicism of such people with bitterness and cynicism of his own. Betty Dylan deliver a nice arrangement that’s slowed down and extremely venomous.

Cake “War Pigs” (Black Sabbath)
Where “Masters Of War” is bitter and cynical, this song is just pissed off. Ozzy has been so pathetic for so long that it’s easy to forget how powerful Black Sabbath were during their prime. I love the “Eve Of Destruction” style bass line on this version.

Sally Timms “When The Roses Bloom Again” (Burnett and Rutherford)
A soldier goes off to war but before he leaves he promises his sweetheart that he’ll be back before the roses bloom again. When he’s gravely injured he asks that he be returned to his sweetheart. It’s a lovely, sentimental song.

This is a slippery song to attribute. The Sally Timms record credits Jeff Tweedy as the songwriter, but Laura Cantrell recorded a version that credits A.P. Carter as the songwriter with an arrangement by Wilco. Johnny Cash recorded a song with the same name and very similar lyrics sometime in the late 50s or early 60s. So I’m just going to stop spending time chasing this down and give it to Johnny Cash. After all this is my hobby, not my job. If I’m wrong I’m sure somebody will tell me.

Update: Thanks to an alert yet anonymous reader we have this information on the song, posted oddly enough on a Marx Brothers fan page:

In 2002, artist Laura Cantrell released a CD called When The Roses Bloom Again. The title track is a cover of an out-take from the Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration Mermaid Avenue, which was dropped from the album of Woody Guthrie-penned lyrics when it was discovered that the song was actually copyrighted by A.P. Carter of the Carter Family. Another source claimed that the words were “Traditional” and that the music was composed by Jeff Tweedy. Further research has found that the song was previously published in New York c 1901 by E. A. Mills and credited to writers Gus Edwards and Will D. Cobb under the aliases Will Whitemore and Harry Hilliard. Then there is a 1926 version by country/bluegrass singers Burnett and Rutherford, who sang the exact lyrics of this song to an entirely different melody. So, could Edwards and Cobb have put their own music to lyrics of a folk or traditional nature that THEY had found? On the album Mermaid Avenue Vol II there’s song called Blood Of The Lamb, which has the same melody as I’ll Be With You When The Roses Bloom Again. The key and chord arrangement are different but it is clearly the same song root, probably reworked when they discovered the lyric problem with …Roses….

Interestingly, Blood of the Lamb is credited to Bennett/Tweedy while …Roses.. was credited to Tweedy alone. Evan Edwards has even seen one website which has the credits “Words by Cobb and Edwards, Music by Jeff Tweedy”.

The Pogues “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” (Eric Bogle)
This song is very difficult for me to listen to because it’s so terribly sad. It tells the story of the Australians who got slaughtered by the Turks at Gallipoli during World War I and what happened to the survivors when they went home. It points out the absurdity of war, as when a truce was negotiated so each side could bury their dead only to “start all over again.” It breaks my heart at the end when the old maimed soldier is watching a parade on Anzac Day. A young person asks him why they’re marching and he asks himself the same question. A question we should all be asking as we honor those who have sacrificed for their country.