UNIVERSAL SOLDIER (annotated lyrics)
Words and music Buffy Sainte-Marie
© Caleb Music
He’s five foot two and he’s six foot four
These were the height parameters for soldiers in 1961
He fights with missiles and with spears
In both the future and the past, soldiers are soldiers: only the equipment varies
He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17
Age parameters during the 1960s
He’s been a soldier for a thousand years
This is not some new high tech phenomenon
He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist a Jain,
A Buddhist, and a Baptist and a Jew
Soldiers are found even among people who are “religious” and are not confined to just one religion
And he knows he shouldn’t kill and he knows he always will
Even though his religion forbids it, he chooses to be a killer
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you
Whichever side he’s on, it’s still absurd
He’s fighting for Canada. He’s fighting for France. He’s fighting for the USA
and he’s fighting for the Russians and he’s fighting for Japan
He’s not just from some far away enemy country but from “our” country too
And he thinks he’ll put an end to war this way
He hasn’t thought it through from a logical, long range point of view
He’s fighting for democracy, he’s fighting for the Reds
He’s on “our side” as well as “their side”
He’s says it’s for the peace of all
He’s believes in the absurdity of violence as an act of peace
He’s the one who must decide who’s to live and who’s to die
He has a responsibility he’s been trained to overlook
And he never sees the writing on the wall
He learns nothing from history so can’t predict obvious outcomes of repeating it
But without him how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau
Human beings allow other human beings to commit genocide
Without him Caesar would have stood alone.
We can’t blame just the leaders
He’s the one who gives his body as a weapon to a war
Each individual has a choice
And without him all this killing can’t go on
No individual soldiers = no war
He’s the universal soldier and he is really is to blame
Some responsibility is upon each soldier
But his orders come from far away no more
The Nazis claimed they were innocent because their orders came from” far away” superiors but that’s not true here and now in our modern democracies
They come from him and you and me
We are each responsible – civilians, mothers and sweethearts – so long as we tolerate it
and Brothers, can’t you see this is not the way to put an end to war?
This last line is put not as scolding someone else but as a question to someone you love. Note that the music ends on an unresolved chord.
Vietnam soldier’s grafitti, mis-identified by Smithsonian Magazine as a “mystery poem”, turns out actually to be from Buffy Sainte-Marie’s song Universal Soldier.
In 1967, a young G.I. was lying on his bunk on a troop carrier headed to Vietnam. On the canvas bottom of the bunk above him, he carefully wrote a few lines of free verse in Morse code. That piece of canvas was donated along with a few others to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where a historian was studying wartime graffiti.
You’re the one who must decide
Who’s to live and who’s to die
You’re the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war – And without you all this killing can’t go on.
The historian published the “mystery poem” in the Smithsonian magazine. It prompted hundreds of letters, more than any other the editors had received on any other article. They were mostly from Vietnam vets. Some were scolding. Every one pointed out that the mystery poem was actually an extract from Buffy Sainte-Marie’s classic song, Universal Soldier.
