Two Wars, Two Protests - Revison

Barrett Ford-Paper 4 Revision

A protest song is by definition a way of musically showing your disagreement or unhappiness with a certain issue, usually political. These songs are often very emotional or at times use strong language, and they are always directed at a certain audience to try to convince them of the validity of a certain viewpoint. The way that the artist tries to convince an audience is the most interesting thing about listening to a protest song. It is also interesting to see how effective the listener feels the songwriter’s argument is. The argument and the way the writer tries to achieve this argument is influenced by the writer’s environment such as culture, political climate, time period, and location. The two protest songs analyzed in this essay, “Live from Iraq” by 4th25 and “Boonie Rat” by Chuck Rosenberg, are protest songs that show how two different environments can affect argument and style of argument. They both rely heavily on the rhetorical element of ethos or credibility of the speaker, and have many similarities as well as differences in the purposes and methods of their arguments. However, the most important thing to be taken from the reading of these songs is that the decades and wars that coincided with their writing affect their differences and reflect a change in approach to protest.

These songs are war protest songs from different decades and different American wars; however, they share many important characteristics. Both of them are told from the perspective of someone who is fighting in the war they are protesting. This is the most important characteristic they share. They are also similar in that when either one is read they could be read at the same simple rhythm. The style of their writing is also unmistakably similar in the informal, matter-of-fact style they both share. It is like these soldiers simply sat in their tents one night writing these songs as if they were writing a letter to be sent back home. However, when actually listened to, these songs could not be more different in the way they sound and the tone in which the song is sung. “Live from Iraq” is a rap song with an angry tone while “Boonie Rat” is a folk song with a fairly somber tone.

Even though the time period and tone the speaker uses is different, both protests are reliable sources to the listener because of the point of view the lyrics are spoken from. From the lyrics of both songs the listener can tell that the persona or speaker in the song is an actual soldier fighting in a war, whether it is the Vietnam War or the Iraq War. The titles themselves make this very apparent. “Live from Iraq” is straightforward in the way it informs the listener that it is being written from Iraq. One might argue that a reporter could have written this from Iraq. However if the reader was to read lines 35-36, “Where for our country we gamble with our lives everyday” (4th25) it becomes clear that the speaker is an actual soldier. “Boonie Rat” by definition is “an experienced explorer or armsman-someone who has been around” (Terry). Once the reader finds out this is what the title means and notices the way it is used in the song, it becomes obvious that the speaker in this song is also a soldier on the frontline. In the chorus of the song Rosenberg writes “Boonie Rat, Boonie Rat, Scared but not alone,” before telling how many days until he will be going home. Rosenberg also says in lines 79-80, “To the Boonie Rats of Vietnam I dedicate this song.” This shows the respect for other soldiers that he has gained as a result of his own experiences in Vietnam. The speaker in this song even gives a sense of hope to the listener at the end of the song as seen in lines 83-84, “Today I see my Freedom Bird. Today, I’m going home” (Rosenberg). This is a stark contrast to “Live from Iraq” which maintains its hopeless tone throughout the song.

Both of these songs rely very heavily on ethos or the credibility of the speaker. The fact that they are written by soldiers who are fighting in wars makes this apparent. There is also no confusion between whom the writer is and whom the persona or speaker is because they are one in the same. Chuck Rosenberg was part of the “second battalion of the 502nd brigade of the 101st Airborne Division” of the U.S. Army when he and his battalion wrote “Boonie Rat” in the Spring of 1970 (Fish), and 4th25 is a rap group made up of two men who are fighting in Iraq. This makes the listener feel like the arguments in the song are more credible because they are coming straight from the source. This, in turn, makes the reader much more likely to listen to or be affected by the protest that the artist make. Their arguments and the styles of songs they wrote may be very different, but the credibility and effectiveness of their arguments are equally unquestioned.

The credibility of the personas in these songs is important, but the most important difference between these two songs is the fact that they are written during two wars about 40 years apart, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. These two wars were very different and, in turn, are different in the ways that people supported or protested them. “Boonie Rat” is from the Vietnam War, and “Live from Iraq” is from the Iraq War. “Boonie Rat” focuses more on the trials and suffering that the soldier has gone through. This can be seen in lines 41-42, “My eyes are often weary, my feet are racked with pain” (Rosenberg). The fact that the soldier wants to come home is also stressed as seen in lines 23-24, “300 days more or less then I’m going home” (Rosenberg). Rosenberg focuses on his individual experiences as a soldier rather than the broad scope of the war. However, he does make a few broad comments regarding the war and his disapproval of it such as in lines 15-16, “I sometimes got the feeling they’re trying to tie the score” or in lines 77-78, “They say there’ll always be a war, I hope they’re very wrong” (Rosenberg). This gives the reader a sense of how argument was approached back then. Rosenberg tries to appeal to the individual and the hardships that a person goes through; however, he also gives the reader a since of hope. The end has a redeeming quality, and the fact that the persona gives respect to his peers in Vietnam reflects a positive outlook.

In “Live from Iraq” the argument focuses more on giving a graphic description of the awful experience of war in general. This can be seen in lines 25-26, “This is bombs in the street blowin up when I drive buyem” (4th25) and lines 117-118, “This is 60 miles an hour thru ambush zones” (4th25). This use of the phrase “this is” helps stress the fact all the things that are described are actually happening and not imagined or thought up by the artists. The song also focuses on the corruption of the war as well as the unnecessary deaths occurring as a result of it. This can be seen in lines 72-73, “Plenty of lives lost over a scandal” (4th25) and lines 100-101, “Sure its politics back home here its bullets thru our tissue” (4th25). The fact is that the ways that the two artists approach their arguments is very different, though they are both protesting the war, and this is obviously in large part because of the political atmospheres surrounding the two wars that are being protested. In contrast to “Boonie Rat” this Iraq War protest focuses more on the scope of the whole war and the corruption and leaders behind it. This is an indicator as to the time period that it was written in. The persona in the 4th25 does not possess any trust of the government responsible for the war they are fighting in, and the lyrics do not give any redeeming quality or hope to the war or the people involved in it.

The difference in the way these songs approach their arguments relates to the change in the approach to protest that occurred in the 40-year span between their writings. Both songs made use of pathos or emotion, but the two songs used it differently. The angry tone and language used by 4th25 is very different from the somber tone used by Rosenberg to evoke sympathy and respect. Much of the language used by 4th25 would probably not have even been appropriate back in the 1960s, so Rosenberg uses a more subdued tone with some hope for the listener at the end. 4th25’s rap song, in contrast, does not give the listener any sort of hope. 4th25 lashed out at the war and their situation, while Rosenberg gives it redeeming qualities and shows respect for other soldiers. The stark changes in tone and wording in these two songs reflect an overall change in approach from a hopeful and respectful one to a shocking and angry one. These differences reflect not only a change in approach to protest but also a change in technology, music, and the world at large. In present day, a button can be pressed to send a nuclear bomb overseas, and in the 1960s mail was still the main means of communication. Back then the most popular artist was The Beatles; now, it is somebody who goes by Soulja Boy. All these changes show that it is only natural for the nature of protest to change because the things that are being protested and the people protesting them are so different. As to the effectiveness of these protests, they can be seen as equally effective or one more effective than the other. This will change depending on who the listener is. Personally, I find “Boonie Rat” more effective because of its ability to give us hope and evoke respect for the soldiers.

Works Cited
4th25. “Live from Iraq.” 1 November 2007. http://www.lyricstime.com/4th25-live-from-iraq-lyrics.html
Fish, Lydia. “Songs of Americans in the Vietnam War.” 25 December 1993. 1 November 2007. http://faculty.buffalostate.edu/fishlm/folksongs/americansongs.htm
Rosenberg, Chuck. “Boonie Rat.” 1 November 2007. http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/b/boonierat.shtml
Terry, Glen E. “Miltary Terms and Slang.” Edited by Lowell R. Matthews. 1999. 1 November 2007. http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/1999/dec/spaceterms.html