24 October 2007

Elle B. (60), Andrew B. (69), Steven V. (69), Chris A. (21), Clarka W.(33), Kendall A.(31), Kei'rra Y.(31), Shaun A.(30), Melissa J.(30), Moua D.(35)

17 comments:

Erin M. said...

Phil Ochs – “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore” (1965)

Oh I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I've killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain't marchin' anymore

It's always the old to lead us to the war
It's always the young to fall
Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes I even killed my brothers
And so many others But I ain't marchin' anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain't marchin' anymore

(chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain't marchin' anymore

Now the labor leader's screamin'
when they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it "Peace" or call it "Treason,"
Call it "Love" or call it "Reason,"
But I ain't marchin' any more,
No I ain't marchin' any more

Anonymous said...

Dear Group,
I am really horrible at this sort of thing, and I’ve got a lot of work in more important classes to do right now, so don’t expect any good ideas from me. My capabilities only go as far as getting a general meaning of a poem or song. By the looks of “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore”, it appears to me that the man has been through many wars and won many victories. However, despite the spoils of victory he has seen and the causes he has fought for, he refuses to continue to fight. He is appalled by the high price many good men pay for their country during a war.
My name is Christopher Anderson, and my interests include electronics and engineering. I have had no prior experience extracting hidden meanings before in order to get a grade, although my dad has tried getting me to find obvious meanings in songs. I always needed to have the obvious pointed out for me to understand it, so hidden meanings in this song will surely go way beyond me.
Chris A. (21)

Anonymous said...

Dear Group,
My name is Clarka, and I am a bioengineering major at Clemson University. English has always been a strong subject for me, so I hope to add some helpful input. I agree with Chris concerning the overall idea of the poem. It seems the speaker has been through many wars and seen many men fall by his hand. In addition, I also feel the speaker is also trying to say he fought in those wars for reasons that now seem ignorant; this is why he is now refusing to fight again for his country. He believes nothing good can come from war and the war they are trying to get him to fight in is absurd. The speaker is obviously a supporter of life when he asks if winning is “worth it all.” By repeatedly mentioning all the people he has killed, especially his “brothers” in the Civil War, the reader is able to have sympathy and better understand the speaker’s position. I hope some of this was helpful! Clarka Wickliffe

Andy Bajoczky said...

Hello Folks,
My name is Andy and i'm a Civil Engineering major at Clemson. I like to build and work in construction. I've always hated dissecting peoms and works like this song, and have never been too good at it. I'll contribute what I can. I'm definitely in agreement with what the first two responses have to say about the song. The author mentions many wars which he fought in (obviously not realistically given the time span). He leads the reader to believe that when each of the wars started he was excited and ready to fight. When he stepped back after each war was over with and looked at what had happened, he was appalled and almost ashaimed to be part of it. I think this is the reason he says that he ain't marchin' anymore. The next important thing to mention is that he talks about the old men wanting the war and leading the country to war. However, the young ones do the actual fighting and lose their lives for the cause. I think he is raising the question here of why aren't the young men fighting determine whether or not to lead the country into war. He puts an emphasis on killing his own brothers during the Civil War and uses it the question the importance of understanding the reasons for going to war. Hope this can generate some different responses. Andy Bajoczky (69)

Anonymous said...

Hey Group!
I’m not the best at this either but I’m going to try. To me it sounds like the man has fought many wars and he does not want to fight anymore. He doesn’t believe that it is worth all the casualties and he is done with serving the country by killing. It sounds like he sarcastically states this when he says “Now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun, Tell me is it worth it all.” I think I would feel the same way as this man if I had fought in this many wars and seen that much bloodshed. I don’t understand the part at the end of the lyrics when it says the United Fruit. I can’t seem to figure out what exactly this is referring to. The part I feel conveys his meaning the strongest is when he says “Yes I have even killed my brothers,” because even if the brother he talks about isn’t blood related he is still considering them family. These are my thoughts so far! - Elle Bergmann

Anonymous said...

Hello group,
My name is Kendall, and I'm a nursing major at USC Upstate. English is one of my strong subjects, but dissecting lyrics and poetry is sometimes a weakness for me. I will try my best to give you all useful feed back. First of all, I believe that the song isn't about one specific person. It would have been impossible for him to fight in all the wars and battles that Phil Ochs has mentioned because of the year differences. I think the reason he did this was to make the listeners realized that after every war or battle, soldiers don't look forward to fighting anymore. By saying "now look at all we've won with the saber and the gun, tell me is it worth it all," seems to me that he is regrets fighting for his country. He realizes that killing so many people may not even be worth it in the end. He also seems to hates every aspect of war including watching cities burn. I hope this information helps. Happy Halloween everyone! Kendall Arthur (31)

Anonymous said...

Hello again group! I agree with Andy when he talks about the young fighting and the old telling them what to do. I’m not sure if the speaker is exactly asking for the young to determine if the country goes to war, but perhaps he is saying there should be some kind of agreement between the two generations in order to take every point of view into account. Like Elle, I also do not completely understand the “United Fruit” part. Can anyone help me out here? Also, there is definite exaggeration when the speaker says he has “killed a million men,” but he is probably so overwhelmed with guilt that it feels like he has killed an indescribable number. Andy also makes a good point about the time span. The wars mentioned in to poem are over a vast number of years, and it would have been physically impossible for him to fight in them all. I think the idea he is trying to present here is that countries have fought in many wars, and many lives have been lost because of it. He is still patriotic, but he feels killing someone is wrong, and perhaps there is a better and more civilized way to sort out issues with various countries. Clarka Wickliffe

Anonymous said...

Dear Group
I agree with the statement made by Kendall Arthur, and hinted at by Andy Bajoczky that there is no way someone could have fought in all those wars. I thought that was assumed by everyone who reads the lyrics. A young man who fought in the Revolutionary War would be an old man, if not dead, by the time the Civil War came around. The lyrics also follow the general psychological trend of men in the war. In the beginning they are, as Andy put it “Excited and ready to fight.” But as the war goes on, this feeling is quickly lost. By the time the war is over, most everyone is appalled at the resulting carnage. It is thus, understandable that they would refuse to fight again. But this would seem exaggerated, because it would seem that after a few years they would be eager to fight again. The person telling the story seems to have held those feelings of sorrow and regret with him through many wars.
Chris A. (21)

Anonymous said...

Hello All,
My name is Melissa and I am a biology/pre-med major at USC Upstate. I have always done well in my English classes, but I'm not sure how much help I will be with this. I agree with everything said so far. I think this man has had a very hard life and he has seen things that he wishes he hadn't. He has fought in all of these wars and he has seen what the costs of war are. I think that he wants the fighting to stop because he is not sure whether or not the outcome is worth all of the deaths. Hope everyone had a good Halloween!
Melissa Joye (30)

Steven Von Egger said...

Dear Group,
My name is Steven and I am very sorry for being late on this assignment. I had no idea my class was evening doing this until about ten minutes ago, so I am very sorry if I let any of you down. Well, after analyzing this song it seems to me that this was definitely a political statement during the Vietnam War. This song was released in 1965 at the height of the psychedelic sixties, and the era of the hippies and “make love, not war.” I believe that Phil Ochs was trying to send a message as well as ask a question with this song. From the looks of it he was saying the youth of that time didn’t want to fight anymore for reasons that were unclear like when he wrote “It's always the old to lead us to the war 
It's always the young to fall.” He’s saying all the wars have been fought because of ulterior motives from higher powers “the old” and the young warriors are the men and woman who have to die because of the decisions of the leaders. So I believe the question that was being asked to listeners of this song was “what were we really fighting for in Vietnam, and was it worth the loss.” As I said before my name is Steven Von Egger and I am very sorry for not posting earlier. I am an Economics major and Political Science minor and also have no experience with this kind of analysis.

Hope I was helpful.

Steven Von Egger

Steven Von Egger said...

Dear Group,
I think a lot of you are missing the point to this song because of lack of prior knowledge. Phil Ochs didn’t write this song from his own prospective, he is writing from the perspective of the soldier. Understanding of history is vital to this analysis; the time gap between some of these wars is one hundred years or more so this cannot be him fighting in these wars. He is generalizing soldiers from many different conflicts and writing as if it is one single person. You might be able to better understand if you can imagine a bunch of different people from different time periods writing the same thing in a journal. All of these people talking don’t even have to be American “Trench warfare was WW1 could have been English or French fighters” but they presumably are American because of the context. To answer some of your “UNITED FRUIT” questions the united fruit company was an American corporation that monopolized tropical fruit trade from places like Central America after they helped over throw the government. The line in this song was referring to “United Fruits” involvement in “The Bay Of Pigs” which was the failed attempted invasion of Cuba by the CIA. This Cue was to try and over throw Fidel Castro, the fruit company helped by donating ships and money to the gorillas and the CIA, if the CIA would have been successful “United Fruit” would have been able to harvest fruit from Cuba.

I hope i was able to help.

Steven Von Egger(69)

Anonymous said...

Hey Group!
Thanks Steven for answering the question on United Fruit. That helps put things into perspective. I did find it odd that he was talking about wars when they were so far apart and I guess I didn’t think enough about it to realize that he was generalizing. Now that we have established this I think our analyzing will be able to improve even more. Also, I think that the history and when this poem was written is important. It really shows what the 60’s was all about with the “make love, not war” theme that Steven said. I think the statement by Chris A. referring to these lyrics as “the general psychological trend of men in the war” is correct. Sorry I’m a few minutes late on the post, I typed it up in word and then my computer froze. I’m looking forward to reading every ones responses.
Elle B.

Anonymous said...

Hello group. I have enjoyed hearing from each of you, and I hope I was of some assistance. Thanks Steven for clearing up the United Fruit question. I’m glad someone knows something about history. I agree with Chris as well about how the soldier’s mind changes during the war. It makes sense to me that his opinion would change after a few years, but I guess he doesn’t need to mention that because by that time a new war is mentioned in the poem. I found a picture online that I think goes along well with the poem: http://homepage3.nifty.com/kinohana/no%20war.gif. The soldier is definitely saying, “killing more is not the answer.” He believes there should be some other way to compromise problems, and blood should not be shed.

Anonymous said...

Dear Group,
I have been trying to say what Steven said, in my last post. No single man could have fought in all those wars, but Ochs was merely singing the song through the eyes of some fictional immortal man who did fight through them all. It is his attempt to bring to light the terrible bottom line of wars: they kill people. Why do we fight them? Because most of the old people who wage them are men. As Jedediah said in Night at the Museum, “We’re boys okay, we fight.” I am a boy, and I know what adrenaline can do to our minds. But we also have feelings, and are filled with guilt when it is all over. I give Steven my appreciation for clearing up that United Fruit thing. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t know either. History isn’t exactly my strongest point. United Fruit seems to fit in the song a little differently, though. While it had the same psychological effect as the rest of the wars, it was not officially a war as much as it was an assassination-type thing with Castro.
Chris A. (21)

Steven Von Egger said...

Dear group,
Hello again for what I think is the last post. Well I think we have all come to the same conclusions about these lyrics. I feel that most of us if not all believe what Elle B confirmed from Chris A’s post, that the lyrics were “the general psychological trend of men in the war,” and this song did show how a individuals perspectives change overtime as well as while undergoing the horrific activities that war entails. I found a picture that plays off the lyrics about how “the old” make decisions and the young are the ones who fall http://www.vvaw.org/gallery/images/fall03photos/cheney-halliburton.jpg. This picture is a political cartoons of the current war, it reinforcing how the soldiers feel even now forty some years after Vietnam and when this song was written.


Thanks

Steven V(69)

Anonymous said...

Hey Group,
Thanks to Steven first of all for helping me understand the song better. I understand now what he means. I agree that his opinions change as the war goes on and I also feel the message in the song is a good one. Taking more lives is not the answer.

Anonymous said...

Hello Everyone!
Overall, I think we did a very good job at rhetorically analyzing this piece. I have looked at the different links everyone has posted. I like Steven’s example of the one soldier holding the other. I think that really conveys what Phil Ochs was trying to say. I think we should agree with what Chris said about wars and they kill people so why do we fight them? Unfortunately I don’t think that this question will ever truly be answered. I found a website that has a few different examples. I thought they were all interesting and couldn’t pick just one. Some of them relate more than others to the song, though. I think that the very first picture would represent this well. It blatantly shows a person, who could have been a soldier although it doesn’t appear so, who is upset about the wars and people dying. This is the same message that Ochs was trying to get across. I hope everyone enjoys the site! http://peoplesgeography.com/2006/12/
Elle b