Being An Anti-War Folk Songwriter
Friday, October 21, 2016
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Being An Anti-War Veteran Folk Songwriter
I’d never
really thought until recently about writing a story on how some of my songs
came about from what I perceived as the disenfranchised and alienated veterans
who returned home from war and never truly got their lives back on track. The
60 Minutes story on May 12th 2013 describes the high suicide rates
which in truth is not really “new” news though it prompted me to write this.
The complexities
of the psychological traumas of war on the human brain can be profound. There
are far better writers than I who have written on that subject. My own problems
were severe enough, with anxiety and depression being the two major hallmarks
of Post Traumatic Stress (I’m personally
against the use of the term disorder for a number of reasons) which anyone who
has lived with it can attest.
I became
more interested in writing songs, both as a therapeutic device and later as a
veteran advocate through personalized songs written in the folk storytelling
style in my late forties. I had reached a point where I could indulge myself
and not be concerned about trying to make a living at it since I wasn’t capable
of performing anyway. There are of course lots of songs extolling patriotism
and the sacrifice of our men and women who have gone to war. A time and place for everything I guess but
being both anti-war and a veteran advocate, I just don’t have those types of
songs in my bones. My love and respect for my fellow veterans is profound but my “flag waving” fervor for America got pretty much washed out of me after
Vietnam.
My focus in
writing became about how living alone and isolated were the more dominant
themes of the reality of life after coming home. Years later, after talking
with younger veterans , I realized our experiences were all the same, different
wars with the same emotionally traumatized outcomes.
A younger
friend, Zander Schloss who I met on the
set of the cult film: Repo Man in 1984 is an an actor and musician currently
working with Sean Wheeler as: Sean &
Zander. Zander sublet the studio
apartment over the garage of a home my wife and I were renting in Los Angeles
in 1999.
I was
excited to work with Zander who was on hiatus as a working musician, having
unfortunately just been culled from Interscope Records. I was in good company
since he had written with both Scott Weiland and Joe Strummer. A great
opportunity and learning experience for me.
We began
dabbling with an 8 track reel to reel and analog soundboard in the basement of
this old Spanish style home and as we accumulated recording equipment, the process
of writing melodies and lyrics became of serious interest on both our parts.
The songs began to evolve with the contributions of many of his fellow
musicians who helped fill out the work we were producing in a folk, punk, Americana and traditional country style. Eventually
it was released in 2005 as “The Gousters.”
“The Gousters” was a term I learned
growing up in Chicago based on black slang having to do with dressing unconventionally.
The CD remained for 60 weeks on the Roots Music Report Folk Chart with a 5 star
review which has given me the kind of validation I needed to continue writing.
A key song
from this album was: “Only Eighteen.” This was my first song as a memoir of Vietnam.
It is a story based on a compilation of tales I knew from guys I met in Vietnam
and my own thrown in. It has been described as raw and emotionally charged with
haunting background vocals and harmonies.
Although
I’ve written poetry and a few songs when I was younger, I never had the mental strength and will to
pursue it more professionally. I was wholly focused on just surviving and
making a living through any number of jobs I’ve had through-out my life. I finally
approached the dream that I could barely acknowledge to myself, of being a
serious songwriter in my late 40’s.
The previous
CD: California I Gotta’ Run (2010) peaked at #2 on Roots Music Chart - Roots /
Americana Country Internet Airplay Chart in October of that year.
I have over
the years done a few radio interviews and submitted my anti-war songs to many
websites and organizations too numerous to remember. A song on California I
Gotta’ Run is called No Shame In Cryin’. This is what I believe to be a particularly poignant song about an older vet talking to the younger
generation of veterans about coming in to seek help at the V.A.
This is also
inspired by the fact that the Vietnam era guys never received much
acknowledgment even from our father’s World War II generation. The “estranged
generation,” I think of as ourselves and we’ve had too many of us afraid of the
stigma of being labeled with a psychological diagnosis or the fear that we will
appear weak if we need to ask for help. Until not too recently I thought, well,
the Vietnam era guys have either by now
asked for the help or didn’t feel they needed it.
It turns out
that we older veterans are actually discovering that the symptoms of Post
Traumatic Stress are becoming much more of a problem as retirement approaches and
the effects of aging make us more prone to not being able to stuff those
experiences down as well as we did when we were younger.
What is truly
tragic for both generations is how many commit suicide each day. They do have a
a hot line set up now but it is critical that much more needs to be done both
at the point when we are released from active duty and given full information
on what symptoms may begin to occur later, which may be months or years. I
myself have received excellent care at the V.A. but I had to struggle for years
prior to fight for my compensation benefits. They did not make it easy to grant
them then. I really can’t say what it is like now except that they are
backlogged with extreme numbers of submissions for disability compensations of
vets from our involvement in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another song
which has importance to me is “Flowers In Her Hand,” 2008. It starts out with a funereal organ like dirge
and is inspired by a photo taken during the Iraq war showing a young woman lying on the grave of her
soldier/ boyfriend/ husband. I recently edited a music video for this song
that I posted on YouTube and my Facebook
music page for Memorial Day 2013.
It points
out once again the futility and stupidity of the wholesale carnage of our loved
ones. The conventional wisdom states
that World War II was the last good war if such a thing can be. The psychology
of violence in the origin of our species would argue for the necessity of war
but I believe that if we do not evolve a higher consciousness, we will go on
killing each other until we end up in oblivion.
Until then we must live up to what our 16th
president proclaimed at his 2nd Inaugural Address as long as we
continue to sacrifice our loved ones in war.
"To
care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan" Abraham Lincoln.
I might add
a quote from a lesser known cleric born in the 1850’s:
“A war less
world will come as men develop war less hearts. ~Charles Wesley Burns
Walt Cronin
thegousters.com
Originally
published in The Alternate Root on Memorial Day May 27, 2013
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