Moratorium

I was in the bread aisle at Sainsbury's this evening and I heard Buffy singing in my ear. She was singing 'Moratorium', a song with lots of words in which she accompanies herself on piano. I stopped for a moment to listen properly.

The song tells us about Captain Collier (who returns home and doesn't know what he's been fighting for), PFC Mannie Stein (who took the draft when his friends didn't and they're in prison), Corporal Thomas McCann (who joined the marines to become a man) and a girl in dungarees who carries a sign with the words, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home." She tells Thomas that he'd been a man all along.

It's a powerful song from Buffy Sainte-Marie's 1971 album, 'She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina'. It's an anti-war song, a plea to bring the soldiers back from Vietnam. It ends with the refrain, 'Hey, bring our brothers home'. 35 years on and it's quite apt.

Buffy's work is just as relevant today as it was way back then.