2nd Note: Housewife Terrorists

                A Broadside ballad is not just any song but a song that engages and adheres to the listeners, singers, and followers to the significance of problem or issues that is greatly affecting a select group of people. Broadside ballads are usually written to the tune and melody of common well-known songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “Amazing Grace”, etc. and tell a story of pertinent political issues plague the people of land during a pivotal era. Most Broadside Ballads are used to relay a message, show the reasoning behind a view point, and persuade others to think more in depth about the major issues at the time.

                And now we have a dilemma! I can’t find a recording of the song I picked “The Housewife Terrorists” by Pete Seeger but I can definitely give you the link to the lyrics. http://www.peteseeger.net/housewife_terrorists.htm

Pete Seeger is a Musician, singer, songwriter, folklorist, labor activist, environmentalist, and peace advocate from Patterson, New York. Being born in 1919, Pete is currently 92 years old and over his life he has witness many political adversities such as the Vietnam War, Racism and Segregation, Pearl Harbor, Gulf War, and World War II all of which have sparked many of his widely known Broadsides. The Housewife Terrorists was written in 1966 in response to the Vietnam War. It tells of four mothers, Housewives, “Joyce and Aileen, Beverly and Lisa…” who one day after hearing that the Napalm barge was to be off to Vietnam they decided to protest against the entire war because they and many others were tired of their husbands and sons, and those of every American and Vietnamese, being unjustly slaughtered. The four women became a human fence barricading against the “fork-lift truck bringing out a bomb load…” They stood their ground until the local Chief, Chief Chew, was forced to arrest them. In the end they received” a suspended sentence /As long as we would obey the law” But they felt that it is our government that was really breaking the laws.

                I totally agree with the four women then the senseless violence of most war is just that senseless and unnecessary. In the song Chief Chew tell the housewives that they need to go through the legislative process and the Housewives retorted by saying that the president needs to go through the legislative process, I love this. It expresses that the government needs to keep itself in check or the people will because no one person or body of people can be above the law if the law is to truly be effective. The overall Ballad reveals that wars are not only a governmental matter but a national and family matter.