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White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land: Representations of War and Their Linguistic Conveyance in Anti–Vietnam War Song Lyrics

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White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land: Representations of War and Their Linguistic Conveyance in Anti–Vietnam War Song Lyrics White boots marching in a yellow land: Representations of war and their linguistic conveyance in anti–Vietnam War song lyrics Suvi Leinonen Master’s Thesis English Philology Faculty of Humanities University of Oulu August 2017 2 Table of Contents 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 2 Material and context ......................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Vietnam War (1954–1975) ......................................................................................................... 5 2.2 American protest music before and during Vietnam ................................................................. 9 2.3 Folk music ................................................................................................................................. 11 2.4 Pete Seeger ............................................................................................................................... 12 2.5 Bob Dylan ................................................................................................................................. 14 2.6 Phil Ochs ................................................................................................................................... 16 3 Stylistics and classical rhetoric ........................................................................................................ 18 4 Representations of war ................................................................................................................... 20 4.1 War as a crime against humanity ............................................................................................. 20 4.2 War as unnecessary sacrifice ................................................................................................... 22 4.3 War as a display of power ........................................................................................................ 25 4.4 War as a betrayal of the American values ............................................................................... 27 5 Persuasive language at work........................................................................................................... 30 5.1 Personal pronouns ................................................................................................................... 30 5.1.1 First person pronouns ........................................................................................................ 31 5.1.2 Second person pronouns ................................................................................................... 36 5.1.3 Third person pronouns ...................................................................................................... 38 5.2 Clause types .............................................................................................................................. 40 5.2.1 Interrogative ...................................................................................................................... 41 5.2.2 Imperative .......................................................................................................................... 45 5.3 Rhetorical devices .................................................................................................................... 47 5.3.1 Satire, irony and parody .................................................................................................... 48 5.3.2 Metaphor ........................................................................................................................... 52 5.3.3 Allegory .............................................................................................................................. 54 5.3.4 Simile.................................................................................................................................. 56 5.4 Cognitive stylistics .................................................................................................................... 57 6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 60 References.......................................................................................................................................... 63 2 1 Introduction Language as a means of persuasion is a phenomenon that has been fascinating scholars since the days of Ancient Greece, when the art of public speaking was studied by rhetoricians. The discipline of rhetoric has later evolved into stylistics, and the two share the view that linguistic devices enable tasks like persuading, convincing and arguing (see Bradford, 1997, pp. 3, 5, 13). The focal point of this thesis is a different type of ‘public speaking’, namely songs. Persuasive linguistic devices are obviously detectable in song lyrics as well. The question of whether music actually has the power to make a difference, or even change the world, has been the initial inspiration for this study. When approaching the question of the manipulative force of music, it is appropriate to explore songs that serve some kind of an agenda, and thus have a motivation to persuade the audience. Therefore, the material of this study consists of political songs; more specifically, songs protesting the Vietnam War. The golden age of political songs was the 1960s, a decade of social activism especially in the United States, where young people attended movements for example promoting African- American civil rights and protesting American involvement in the Vietnam conflict. Music, specifically folk and folk rock, played an essential part in those movements; therefore, this is a fruitful context for this study (see e.g. “Folk music,” 2017). A typical feature of the ‘folk revival’ was the participatory nature of the songs, and communal singing – combined with emotive lyrics – functioned as a strengthener of the collective identity of the audience: the songs expressed the stance of a whole “generation of people determined to bring about political change” (Boucher, 2004, p. 154). This paper examines lyrics written by three American singer-songwriters who had a central role in the folk music scene: Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan. The lyrics chosen for this study have been adopted by the peace movement, especially in the context of opposing the Vietnam War. Some of the songs assail war in general, while others specifically criticize the active part of the United States in the conflict between North and South Vietnam. Although the songs examined in this study were written fifty years ago, they still resonate with today’s world: injustice, wars and deceitful politicians have not gone away. Phil Ochs’s song ‘Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon’ (1974), which contains for example the lines “criminals are posing as advisors to the crown / . / and the speeches of the President are the ravings of a clown”, has inspired several amateur musicians to upload their updated versions to YouTube: 3 there are at least five different variations of ‘Here’s to the State of Donald Trump’, in which Ochs’s lyrics have been slightly altered – but with the abovementioned lines meaningfully left untouched. Furthermore, the role of the United States as the World’s Police, commented in Phil Ochs’s ‘Cops of the World’ (1966), is still an undeniable fact, judging by the involvement in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance. Finally, what gives the ultimate touch of topicality to the subject of this paper is the fact that in 2016, Bob Dylan received one of the most prestigious recognitions a writer can get: the Nobel Prize in Literature; "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” (“The Nobel Prize”, 2016). Apart from the apparent timelessness of some of the texts studied in this thesis, and despite originating from an American context, the lyrics are not strictly bound to the United States: Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ (1963) and Pete Seeger’s ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ (1955) have been sung at protest marches around the world, thus being examples of the transnational character of protest music (Kutschke, 2015, p. 322). Songs written by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs have also been translated into several languages, which is a proof of their universal appeal. This thesis is founded on two research questions that are both connected to rhetoric: the first one is related to argumentation and the second one to style. The first question is: What kinds of arguments do the songwriters provide to support the anti-war cause, or, how do they represent the war in their songs? The second question is: What kinds of linguistic means have the songwriters used in order to make their songs effective? The concept of ‘effectiveness’ refers to the fact that as political songs, the songs have two objectives: firstly, to change people’s attitudes, opinions, and behaviour; and secondly, to strengthen the convictions of those already in the movement. It is reasonable to presume that this intent is visible in the lyrics of the songs; that by choosing certain arguments and using a certain kind of language, the songwriters have aimed at making their songs more persuasive. Of course, measuring the influence of the songs on the minds of the audience is beyond the scope of this study, not to mention entering
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