Song picture
Jacob and the Flag
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acoustic folk social commentary political satire western massachusetts oil coal climate change fracking incineration music for social change nuclear energy
Folk singer, social commentary, satire, people's stories, children's music
Hi Folks, The Bard Insurgent here. My comrade D.O. (the Poet Roofer) and I got that handle (The Bard Insurgents) from traveling town to town performing songs and poetry about people's lives. I've been performing since I was 3 years old, cutting my vocal chords on liturgical and classical music. I was a concert soloist as a child, when I wasn't herding cows, throwing hay and shoveling manure. During the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war, I began writing songs about social change. I left the country in 1970 and my dozen years in other countries, mostly in Africa & South America, have provided a global perspective to my music. My travels helped me realize that people all around the world are essentially the same in their basic life needs and their desires to live peacefully in their communities. These experiences have informed my commitment to working for international understanding as I organize at home. A powerful way to educate and inspire is with music. I tell people's stories, do social commentary with a touch of satire that I hope you enjoy and share with your friends, as well as sing together in the streets and in your living rooms. I also have children's music written for the children in my life with Jacob and Kayla as primary muses. Looking forward to seeing you on the road, Tom
Song Info
Genre
Podcasts Politics
Charts
Peak #18
Peak in subgenre #1
Author
Tom Neilson
Rights
Tom Neilson
Uploaded
December 22, 2012
Track Files
MP3
MP3 1.5 MB 128 kbps 1:38
Lyrics
My son, Jacob, was 10 years old when the bombs started dropping on the people in Afghanistan. In support of the war, his teacher gave his class a lesson on the flag; why it was necessary to honor and respect it. Then she put a flag up in front of the students and told them to stand and sing the national anthem. Jacob didn’t stand. His teacher told me that she insisted that he stand, but that he wouldn’t. I asked her if she inquired of Jacob why he didn’t want to stand. She replied, “No,” and added that she told him “he should stand,” that “it was the proper and right thing to do,” and that he still refused to stand. He told me that she got the class involved by telling them that they would lose their cooperation point if he didn’t stand up. He was then subjected to the further humiliation of being bullied by several of his classmates. Jacob told the principal that he wouldn’t stand up as long as we were killing kids in Iraq, had a boycott against Cuba, and a war in Afghanistan. He told her that we’re killing people all around the world and that the flag stands for war. All Jacob wanted was an apology so that his classmates would know he didn’t do anything wrong, but the principal wouldn’t apologize to the class because she was afraid that if the class knew they had a first amendment right to remain seated, then other kids might not stand up, as well. I said that if children are intellectually capable of understanding what it means to pledge allegiance to a country at war, then they are capable of understanding what it means to have a conscientious objection to that war. She replied that her decision “was best for all concerned.”
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