Oh! Good Old Fashioned War! A Retelling of Bob Dylan’s “John Brown”
Songs are stories in their own right, especially ones that were written by the great storyteller, Bob Dylan. “John Brown” is an anti-war song, written and composed by Dylan and set in the peak of the Vietnam war (or perhaps the American civil war if based on the anti-slavery icon). Either way, it’s a powerful protest against the inhumanity that is warfare, a story of how glorification of the war is quickly silenced by the reality of a wounded soldiers’ return home. I had an idea awhile ago to take some of my favourite songs and turn them into stories. This was an interesting writing prompt for me as well as a lesson learned, and a chance to further explore one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard. Make sure to listen to the song — Bob Dylan tells the story much better in few words than I do in many.
It’s 1960’s America and the battle outside is raging. John Brown has been summoned, as have many of his peers, to fight for “peace” in Vietnam. A frail, timid and educated young man, John’s passion for modern warfare fails to exist. His mother, however, displays an unlikely passion for the unthinkable thing that is ripping men and women and children from existence. Oh! Good old fashioned war! How things can be so well-admired from such great distances. As he fastens the final button on the uniform that weighs down on his prospect of a future, he feels choked by the country for which he is about to risk his young, frightened life. He emerges from the safety of his bedroom where he spent a sleepless final night, to find his mother standing proudly in the door frame wearing a grin wider than any he has seen before. He finishes off the ensemble with his gun and her heart could burst with pride, for to serve the nation on the battlefield is the most dignified and noble of careers. Her excitement in the lead up to his departure day had been too much to bare, only serving to highlight his lack of enthusiasm. His crippling fear.
Her son, the soldier! So handsome, so brave, so successful! But still John Brown’s emotions only deflect his mothers. “I’ll make some space on the fireplace for the medals you’ll take home!” she says. He allows the thought to pass that his mother may be under an elderly-induced confusion, waving her only son off to a friendly football game rather than overseas to the killing field. But this, he knows, is not the case.
As the train departs he sees his mother fade from view, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. A single tear falls down his cheek. Seeing her again is not a matter of when, but if. There is the faint hum of a song he knows coming from the carriage next to his. How many deaths will it take till they know, that too many people have died?
Oh! Good old fashioned war!
For two years their relationship is reduced to a handful of letters, some of which arrive and some of which are lost in transit. John Brown writes of the strange Vietnamese food and the breathtaking sunsets, but spares his mother stories of dodged cannonballs, crushed limbs, and fallen friends. These letters hang proudly above the mantelpiece, soon to be joined by shiny medals of war.
Soon though, the letters cease to come. From an innocently ignorant standpoint and a false glorification of war, his mother does not worry nor think the worst. She waits and waits, her pride growing stronger by the day. Oh, what work he must be doing out there, what victories he must be leading!
Years pass, then one day she receives a letter informing her that her son is coming home and instructing her to go to the station. Older now, she waits on the same platform on which she waved him goodbye years before. She stands there once again, with fond memories of her brave and handsome soldier. And then a stranger approaches…
“Hi Ma”…
Only he is not a stranger. He is her son, her only son, and he is bruised, beaten, battled and bandaged. One of his hands did not make it back from Vietnam, and a metal brace surrounds his otherwise unsupported waist. His physical appearance and voice almost unrecognisable, he begins to speak, pouring out the details that he omitted from his letters. John Brown, tragically tortured and irreparably traumatised from a life that centred around death. What scared him the most, he says, was that when his enemy came close his face looked just the same as his own.
Is there a more accurate depiction of the tragedy of war? Man killing man killing man. For up close there are no enemies, only people.
Shocked and confused by the state of her son after years on the battle ground, Johns mother can not help but turn away, but not before he calls her close,
And drops his medals down into her hand.
